COMPOUND-COMPLEX AND COMPLEX-COMPOUND SENTENCES
§ 523. Sometimes subordination and coordination may be combined within one sentence, in which case we may have compound-complex and complex-compound sentences.
1 See M. Ganshma, N. Vasilevskaya, op. cit., p. 321.
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A compound-complex sentence is essentially a compound sentence in which at least one coordinate clause is complex in structure.
/ know that she loathes me, but I'll make her love me. (Gray).
If a complex sentence has two (or more) subordinate clauses "connected by way of coordination, we have a complex-compound sentence, as in
He told me I could see for myself he wasn't very young and his health wasn't very good. (Gilbert).
DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH
§ 524. Among the composite sentences of English and other languages we find a peculiar type differing from the rest.
Cf. He said, "/ love you". (Greene). ,
He said he loved her. ~~
The first sentence is traditionally called direct speech, the second sentence — indirect speech.
Usually direct speech is defined as "the exact words of the speaker" 1. But this definition is unsatisfactory in several ways.
1. It is not grammatical. It does not say anything about
the syntactical structure of the sentence. No wonder, there
fore, that some authors 2 use the term 'direct speech' in
reference to all kinds of utterances:
To-morrow morning I leave England.
This is the last time I shall ever look on you. •
"So you, too, are leaving London?" I remarked.
2. 'Exactness' is no criterion. We do not and need not
check up whether the words used are exactly those somebody
said, especially since that 'somebody' may be an imaginary
1 See M. Ganshina, N. Vasilevskaya, op cit., p. 330.; В. Л. К а-
ушанская and others, op. cit., p. 299.
2 See, for instance, И. П. И в а н о в a, op. cit., p. 86.
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person. What matters is not exactness but the way the words are presented.
§ 525. There is no agreement as to the syntactical nature of a sentence like He said, "I love you".
Some linguists regard it as a simple sentence in which the "quotation part" functions as a secondary part of the sentence *. Others 2 interpret it as a complex sentence in which the quotation serves as an object clause. Some authors treat it as a compound sentence 3.
We fully agree with those 4 who think that direct speech is a peculiar syntactical unit which should not be equated with any of the above mentioned types of sentences.
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• § 526. Let us compare the two sentences:
He said, "I love you". He said he loved her.
Each of them contains two predications, so they are composite sentences, but the relation between the predications is different.
The predications of the second sentence have, as it were, one common centre. For both of them the first person is the author who uttered or wrote the sentence. The moment he did it is the moment of speech in regard to which the two actions (of "saying" and "loving") are in the past.
The predications of the first sentence have separate centres: different first persons and different moments of speech. The introductory part of this sentence (He said, "...") serves to indicate the shifting of the centre of predication. The pronoun he points out who will be regarded as the first person in the quotation, and the verb said shows that the moment of speech is shifted to the past.
Thus direct speech can be defined as a syntactical unit containing two centres of predication. We use the term unit,
1 H. Fowler. On Grammatical Inversion in Dialogue Machinery. Oxford, 1919.
2E. В. Васильева. Бессоюзное подчинение в литературном языке 17 ст., дисс., Л., 1955.
3Винокурова. Грамматика английского языка. М., 1954.
4 В. И. К о д у х о в. Способы передачи чужого высказывания «Уч. зап ЛГПИИЯ», т. 104, Л., 1955; Р. Г. М у х а. К вопросу о прямой речи. «Уч. зап. ХПИИЯ», т. V, 1959.
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not sentence, because the quotation, may contain several sentences.
He said, "If it had been warmer, we could have slept out here. You'd think we might have had that much luck, to-night of all nights. But it's cold and it's going to rain." (Greene).
§ 527. The introductory part of direct speech may precede the quotation, follow it, or be inserted in it.
"I've come home, Mum," he said. (Maugham).
"/ just called", Amos said, "to see my son". (Moore).
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§ 528. The so-called 'indirect speech' does not differ grammatically from the conventional types of sentences.
E. g. He said that he loved Mary (a complex sentence with an object clause).
What he said was that he had no intention to stay (a complex sentence with a predicative clause). He told me to stay (a simple sentence).
The only difference between He said he loved her and He knew he loved her is the lexical meaning of the verbs said and knew. Sentences of indirect speech usually contain the so-called 'verba dicendi'.
§ 529. The "rules for changing from direct into indirect speech" found in most English grammars are rules for reducing two predicative centres to one — that of the author.
The first and the second person of the quotation in He said, "I love you" are third persons in relation to the author, hence the change of / to he and you to her.
The moment of speech of the first person of the quotation is in the past with regard to the moment of speech of the author, hence the change of love to loved in He said he loved her.
CONCLUSION
§ 530. We have made a survey of the morphological and syntactical systems of Modern English, resorting, where appropriate, to comparison with Modern Russian. Now, by way of summing up, we shall make an attempt to point out those
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basic features which make the grammatical structure of Modern English distinguishable from that of Modern Russian.
§ 531. We shall naturally begin with the word. One of the most striking features of English words as compared with Russian words is the scarcity of positive grammatical morphemes. The number of grammatical suffixes, for instance, does not exceed 13. But even these are often homonymous as, for example, /-s/ /-z/ /-iz/ in the nouns fathers, father's, fathers' and the verb fathers. Prefixes are not used as grammatical morphemes at all. In Russian the number of suffixes and prefixes used as grammatical morphemes exceeds 70.
This scantiness of grammatical morphemes in English is productive of certain characteristic sequels:
a) The proportion of zero morphemes is much greater in
English than in Russian. The 'singular number, common
case' grammeme in English, for instance, is (with the excep
tion of a few 'foreign' nouns) characterized by a zero morpheme*
whereas in Russian all case and number grammemes may have
positive grammatical morphemes. .Similarly, the verb gram
meme (7, we, you, they) go, come, live, stand, etc. has a zero
morpheme, whereas in Russian similar grammemes have a
number of positive morphemes. The 'positive degree' gram
meme of adjectives has a zero morpheme in English and pos
itive morphemes in Russian.
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b) Grammatical combinability plays an incomparably
smaller role in English than in Russian.
Cf. белая стена, белый потолок, белых потолков; мы, пишем, вы пишете, они пишут.
c) The number of words with oblique grammatical meanings
is much greater in English than in Russian. For instance,
there are but a few indeclinable nouns with oblique case mean
ings in Russian ( до метро , на такси ), whereas in English
there are more nouns with oblique than with actual case
meanings.
d) Owing to the absence of positive case inflexions in
about 98% of nouns in speech, the relations of nouns, the
most numerous class of words, to other words in the sentence
is not expressed by their forms, as in Russian.
§ 532. The abundant use of grammatical word-morphemes compensates the English verb system for the scarcity of inflexions. This is another striking feature of English, as com-
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pared with Russian where grammatical word-morphemes are used only in 'future non-perfective' grammeines ( буду / будешь , etc./писать ) and 'subjunctive mood' grammemes ( писал бы ).
Note. particle.
In Russian grammar books бы is called a
§ 533. In the other parts of speech the compensation for the scarcity of inflexions is the extensive use of semi-notional words and of the relative position of words as means,of expressing the connections of words in speech. Prepositions are of greater importance than in Russian as indicators of the relations of nouns (and noun-equivalents) to other words in the sentence. Articles, semi-notional possessive pronouns, prepositions often mark the beginning of a string of words related to a certain noun.
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Cf. the we—know—that—he—knows—that—she—knows de velopment; of very great and ever Increasing importance.
§ 534. Russian is richer than English not only in grammatical morphemes but in lexico-grammatical morphemes (stem-building elements) as well. As a result there are many more homonyms in English than in Russian.
English has developed a way of lexeme-building without stem-building elements (conversion) which is much less used in Russian. The abundance of words related by conversion is another striking feature of the English language.
In the verb system the lexico-grammatical word-morphemes compensate for the scarcity of lexico-grammatical morphemes. Such composite verbs as get up, ring up, find out, take in, etc. are a characteristic feature of English not found in Russian.
In speech the prop-word one helps to indicate an adjective (or adjective equivalent) which is not followed by a noun much in the same way as an article (or another determiner) indicates a noun.
.§ 535. The syntactical system of a language is, as a rule, closely connected with its morphological system. The structure of the sentence and the structure of the word are interdependent.
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In Russian the nominative case of a noun and its grammatical combinability with a finite verb are usually sure signs of the subject. So the position of the subject is mostly a matter of secondary importance from the grammatical point of view. Not so in English The noun has no 'subject case'. Its grammatical combinability with a finite verb is limited and does not, very often, exclude other nouns in the sentence.
(Cf. Встречает Пеп . ра Иван ; * meets Peter John.) Hence the rigid word-older in an English sentence.
§ 536. The Russian verb clearly expresses the indicative, imperative and subjunctive moods. So the relation to reality (the most essential component of predicativity) is obvious whether there is a subject or the 'person' is expressed by the verb itself. Cf ( ты ) пиши , ( ты ) пишешь . Such sentences can do without subjects.
In English write can be the form of an infinitive or of any mood. So the subject is not optional. The absence of a subject before write is usually a signal of the imperative mood. If the meanings of the other moods are to be expressed, the subject is unavoidable. This is one of the reasons why the two-member sentence is the norm in English, whereas in Russian one-member sentences of the type напишу , едут , вспомнил , светает , etc. are also very common.
§ 537. The role of grammatical word-morphemes is even greater in English syntax than in morphology.
a) In the morphological system only some categories of the
verb and the degrees of comparison are expressed with the help
of grammatical word-morphemes, whereas no category of the
sentence is expressed without grammatical word-morphemes
in English.
b) Besides the morphological word-morphemes the sen
tence makes use of special syntactical word-morphemes.
Russian has no syntactical word-morphemes and but a small number of morphological word-morphemes. This is the reason why the structural and the notional (parts of the) subject and predicate are mostly not separated, as they are in English.
This is one of the most important features distinguishing the analytical structure of the English sentence from the synthetic structure of the Russian sentence.
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§ 538. Among other peculiarities distinguishing the English sentence from the Russian, one has to mention the complexes forming secondary predications. They are convenient substitutes for subordinate clauses.
The distinction English makes between primary and secondary predications, i. e. predications with or without structural meanings, is also connected with the analytical structure of the English sentence.
§ 539. It is owing to most of the features described above that Modern English is spoken of as an analytical language.
Борис Семенович. Хаймович, Беатриса Иосифовна Роговская
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