Principles of Monopredicative Syntactic Units Organization

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There are two principles of monopredicative syntactic units organization: the subject-predicate principle and the theme-rheme principle. In two-member sentences, 'sentence representatives' and sentencoids having explicit but dependent predication, the two principles go hand in hand. Cf.: Her mother sent for me (Sh. Anderson); Please ... come home. -1 will (D. Steel); Why don't I live with you¹? Because mamma's dead? (F.S. Fitzgerald), where the subject groups her mother, I, and mamma are the themes and the

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predicate groups sent for me, will, and is dead are the rhemes of the syntactic units given in bold italics.

All the other sentencoids defy the structural analysis into subject and predicate, for the notions of subject and predicate are correlative notions. But two-component sentencoids with a fusion of explicit and implicit predication are communicatively discrete: one component says something about the second component, e.g.:

All of us in lovel (I. Murdoch).

Everything all right¹? (D. Francis).

Bands up (Ph. Incledon).

The use of the theme-rheme or the rheme-theme sequence depends on the emotive charge of the utterance. Purely informative utterances and questions seeking information are generally built on the theme-rheme principle, e.g.:

I will go to the States (E. Hemingway).

Father gone (T. W. Robertson).

Will they pay its'? (St. Minot).

You ever see her before¹? - No (1. Shaw).

Among evaluative utterances rendering the subjective attitude of the speaker, there is naturally a high proportion of the rheme-theme sequence, e.g.:

What a perfect angel you are, Cecily (O. Wilde).

A gentleman, that dog (J. Galsworthy).

Very dark in here these days (W. Deeping).

M.A.K. Halliday regards the theme-rheme integration as a universal phenomenon. The theory of communicative sentence / 'sentence representative' / sentencoid analysis is of great practical importance. It is indispensable in teaching:

1) the optimum way of developing thought,

2) elocution,

3) translation aimed at elucidating and rendering the
communicative task of the original text by means of another
language.

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SEMANTIC SYNTAX

Language is a system that mediates between the universe of meaning and the universe of sound. Language involves the following process. A configuration of concepts arises within the nervous system of a human being, who converts these concepts into sound. The sound travels to the listeners, and is normally reconverted within their nervous systems into some facsimile of the original concepts. In other words, the conversion of meanings into sounds allows human beings to transfer ideas from one to another.

The smallest unit of communication is an utterance that represents speech realization of a sentence. The sentence has two structures: a conceptual structure and a surface structure. The formal components of the surface structure are accessible to observation in relatively straightforward ways and from a variety of perspectives. Concepts, on the other hand, are located deep within the human nervous system. Presumably they have some physical, electrochemical reality there. But we can make no conceptual spectrograms, X-rays, or tape recordings to peruse at our leisure. No wonder that until the 60-s of the 20^th century linguists have concentrated their attention on a study of the surface structure of the sentence, leaving semantics to a very large extent to philosophers. In consequence, we still know rather little about the nature of language, for semantic structure constitutes the crucial component of language. Without knowledge of semantic structure, we are ignorant of the processes which produce well-formed utterances, for these are the processes of semantic formation.

The satisfactory observation of meanings is certainly difficult but by no means impossible. The widespread despair that has existed over conceptual data has stemmed in large part from a pervasive scepticism as to the validity of introspection as a method of scientific observation. If concepts have their locus within our minds, that is the place to look for them, but to do so was anathema in the recent past. Observations arrived at through introspection have been characterized as worthless or impossible. The implication is that each person will find something different, that the minds of different speakers do not hold significant things in common. If concepts were idiosyncratic, language would not be able to function. This is not to say that people think in identical ways. It is

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to say that speakers of a particular language - and probably all people - hold a large store of concepts in common. The sounds that travel from the speaker do not normally engender new conceptual units in the mind of his hearer. They activate concepts already there, concepts that both the speaker and his hearer have in common. They may and often do introduce novel configurations of these familiar concepts. But it is normally only the configurations that are new, not the concepts that make them up. Thus, if I tell you My house has seventeen doors, this may be something you did not know before, but it is only the message as a whole that is new. The constituent concepts, such as are reflected in surface structure items like house, doors, and seventeen are concepts that you and I have shared for as long as we have been able to speak English.

Semantics has come to the fore in the 60-s of the 20^th century. The most popular is the referential conception of sentence meaning (pe^epenmHOH Kony,erfyun SHa^enufi npedno^ceuuH}. The adherents of this conception hold that the referent of the sentence is the situation. Linguists use different terms for the semantic units identifying the participants of the situation: semantic actants, arguments, roles, etc. The combination of arguments with the predicator constitutes a semantic model of the situation. In the surface structure of a sentence, arguments usually find their expression in noun phrases, predicators - in verbs.

The Conception ofW.L. Chafe

One of the founders of semantic syntax is the American linguist W. L. Chafe. The human conceptual universe, according to W. L. Chafe, can be divided into two areas: the area of the verb and the area of the noun. (By verbs and nouns he understands semantic verbs and nouns, not elements of the surface structure.). The area of the verb embraces states and events. The area of the noun embraces 'things' (both physical objects and abstractions). Of these two the verb is regarded by him to be central. First of all, in every language a verb is present semantically in all but a few marginal utterances, though it may, in some instances, be deleted before a surface structure is reached. While it is accompanied typically by one or more nouns, there exist sentences in which only a verb is present, e.g.:

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SEMANTIC SYNTAX

Language is a system that mediates between the universe of meaning and the universe of sound. Language involves the following process. A configuration of concepts arises within the nervous system of a human being, who converts these concepts into sound. The sound travels to the listeners, and is normally reconverted within their nervous systems into some facsimile of the original concepts, hi other words, the conversion of meanings into sounds allows human beings to transfer ideas from one to another.

The satisfactory observation of meanings is certainly difficult, but by no means impossible. The widespread despair that has existed over conceptual data has stemmed in large part from a pervasive scepticism as to the validity of introspection as a method of scientific observation. If concepts have their locus within our minds, that is the place to look for them, but to do so was anathema in the recent past. Observations arrived at through introspection have been characterized as worthless or impossible. The implication is that each person will find something different, that the minds of different speakers do not hold significant things in common. If concepts were idiosyncratic, language would not be able to function. This is not to say that people think in identical ways. It is

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Semantics has come to the fore in the 60-s of the 20^th century. The most popular is the referential conception of sentence meaning (pe(pepeHmHQx KOHifenijiiH SHOMemifi npednoatceHusi). The adherents of this conception hold that the referent of the sentence is the situation. Linguists use different terms for the semantic units identifying the participants of the situation: semantic actants, arguments, roles, etc. The combination of arguments with the predicator constitutes a semantic model of the situation. In the surface structure of a sentence, arguments usually find their expression in noun phrases, predicators - in verbs.

The Conception ofW.L. Chafe

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Come on (P. Viney).

Utterances which semantically have no verb, like Oh or Ouch, W.L. Chafe regards as relics of the prehuman kind of communication, in which the direct symbolization of unitary (edunuvutiiu) messages was the rule, e.g.:

aggressive threat - bark,

non-aggression - lip-smacking, etc.

hi the second place, the verb is the control centre of a sentence, determining what the rest of the sentence will contain -not completely, of course, but to a significant degree.

The generation of a semantic structure, writes W.L. Chafe, proceeds in the following way. At the outset, the verb is characterized as state, process, action, action-process, or ambient.

.States

The wood is dry (W.L. Chafe).

The verb indicates a state (dry). It is accompanied by the noun wood that is its patient. The patient specifies what it is that is in the state of being dry.

Non-states are distinguished from states by the fact that they answer the questions What happened? What is happening? A non-state is a happening, an event. Non-states fall into processes, actions, and action-processes.

Pr_oce_s_s_e_s_

~fhe wood dried (W.L. Chafe).

The noun wood has changed its state (it has become dry). W.L. Chafe -specifies the verb in such sentences as a process, the noun - as its patient. A process sentence answers the question What happened to N?, where N is some noun.

Actions.

The men laughed (W.L. Chafe).

The verb laughed expresses an action. An action sentence answers the question What did N do? The noun in an action sentence indicates somebody who performs the action. Such a noun can be said to be the agent of the verb.

Actign-Prgcess.es

The verb in some sentences is, simultaneously, both a process and an action, e.g.:

Michael dried the wood (W.L. Chafe).

As a process, it involves a change in the condition of its patient (What happened to the wood? - The wood became dry.}. As an action, it expresses what the agent did (What did Michael do? -Michael dried the wood.).

Ambient

h 's hoi (W.L. Chafe).

It '$ late (W.L. Chafe).

It's Tuesday (W.L. Chafe).

The meaning of sentences like these seems to involve nothing but a predication, in which there is no 'thing' of which the predication is made. It in these sentences is a surface element only; it does not reflect anything at all in the semantic structure. The verbs in these sentences denote all-encompassing states that cover the total environment, not some object within it. W.L. Chafe specifies such verbs as ambient.

Ambient verbs can express not only all-encompassing states but also all-encompassing actions, e.g.:

It's raining (W.L. Chafe).

It's snowing (W.L. Chafe).

Nouns are specified by W.L. Chafe as count, potent, animate, human, and unique. W^T.L. Chafe draws a distinction between count (or countable) nouns and mass nouns. It is only count nouns that can be counted, although some count nouns, namely proper names, cannot be counted.

W.L. Chafe specifies as potent those nouns that have the power to do something. Most potent nouns are animate. But there are some inanimate nouns that have a force of their own, e.g.:

The heat melted the butter (W.L. Chafe).

The wind opened the door (W.L. Chafe).

So, the concept 'potent' is broader than the concept 'animate'.

Animate nouns are further specified as human and non-human. The concept 'human', for the most part, has to do with human beings as opposed to other animate creatures. The presence of this semantic unit has various surface structure manifestations. For example, a noun that contains it may be represented in surface structure by pronouns like he, she, or who while a non-human noun is represented by it or -which under the circumstances.

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A human noun is given gender, that is its sex is specified. In Modern English the sex is seldom specified. Not knowing the sex of a human noun, W.L. Chafe treats it conceptually as male.

Unique (or proper) names involve only a single individual, a class of one member. For that reason, although they are count nouns, they are not amenable to counting, since counting depends on the existence of more than one individual in the class. Of course, there may be many individuals named Michael, but each of these individuals is a separate concept.

The selectional units of state, process, action, action-process, and ambient within the verb determine the rest of the structure in two ways. First, they limit the choice of a verb root. Thus, process and action permit the choice of awaken (6ydumb, pasdydumb}, but not of dead (Mepmebiti).

Second, they determine the number and relation of accompanying nouns: process, for example, requires the accompaniment of a patient noun, and action requires the accompaniment of an agent noun.

Selectional units within the verb also determine the selectional units within the accompanying nouns. It means that the verb, through its selectiona! units, limits the choice not only of its own root but also the choice of accompanying noun roots. For example, the agent noun is constrained by the verbs awaken and frighten to be potent, although the choice of human or non-human is free. Cf,:

Hie explosion awakened Michael (W.L. Chafe) - potent, non-human,

I frightened the elephant (W.L. Chafe) - potent, human.

The patient noun, because of the verbs awaken and frighten, must be animate and therefore both count and potent, although the choice of human or non-human, and unique or non-unique, is again free. Cf.:

The explosion awakened Michael (W.L. Chafe) - animate, count, potent, human, unique.

/ frightened the elephant (WL. Chafe) - animate, count, potent, non-human, non-unique.

In addition to agent and patient, W.L. Chafe singles out five more relations of Noun to Verb.

Although Tom looks as if it were an agent from the point of view of surface structure (cf.: Tom cut the paper), it is not an agent. Tom is not someone who did something. Rather, he is a person who was mentally disposed in some way. The verb wanted is an experiential verb, and the noun Tom is an experiencer. Experiential verbs can be states, processes, and actions. Cf:

Tom knew the answer (W.L. Chafe).

Tom learned the answer (W.L. Chafe).

Harry taught Tom the answer (W.L. Chafe).

Beneficiary;

Tom has/owns a convertible (W.L. Chafe).

Tom is the one who benefits from having a car. The verbs have and own are benefactive verbs. They are accompanied by the beneficiary Tom. Benefactive verbs can be states, processes, action-processes, and actions. Cf:

Tom has the tickets (W.L. Chafe).

Tom lost the tickets (W.L. Chafe).

Mary gave Tom the tickets (W.L. Chafe).

Mary sang for Tom (W.L. Chafe).

A beneficiary noun will appear in surface structure as a subject so long as no agent is present. When an agent is present, a beneficiary will show up either as a noun directly following the surface structure verb or as a sentence-final noun preceded by the preposition for. Which position it occupies depends largely on whether or not it conveys new information in the sentence.

•Instrument. Another relation that a noun may bear to a verb appears to be that of instrument, e.g.:

Tom cut the rope with a knife (W.L. Chafe).

Knife resembles an agent since it has something to do with bringing about the change of condition that the sentence conveys. Nevertheless, Tom is the real agent here; he is the one who did something. Knife is the instrument that he used in order to change the condition of the rope. The relation 'instrument' differs noticeably from the relations 'experiencer' and 'beneficiary' because it is not associated with a particular selectional unit within the verb. There is nothing parallel to 'benefactive' or 'experiential' that requires the verb to have an accompanying instrument. What is necessary is that the verb be specified as an action-process. An

Tom wanted a drink (W.L. Chafe).

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action-process verb optionally may be accompanied by a noun that is related to it as instrument. Cf.:

Tom opened the door (with a key) (W.L. Chafe).

An instrument noun appears in surface structure as a sentence-final noun preceded by the preposition -with (see the above-given example) or as a subject, e.g.: The key opened the door (W.L. Chafe).

Complement:

Mary sang a song (W.L Chafe)

The children played a game (W.L. Chafe).

Here the verb describes a certain action that, by its very nature, implies the co-existence of a certain nominal concept. Singing, for example, implies a song; playing implies a game. It is typical of cases of this sort that the verb involves an action that causes something to come into being - that creates something. W.L. Chafe calls such verbs completable. The noun that specifies a computable verb is termed by him 'complement'.

The relation of complement, in his opinion, is quite distinct from that of patient, although the surface representations of the two are identical in most languages. A complement noun does not specify something that is in a state or that changes its state. It completes or specifies more narrowly the meaning of the verb. The noun root that may occur within a particular complement noun is severely limited by the verb root. In fact, a completable verb root may dictate the presence of one and only one particular noun root in its complement - as sing dictates song and play dictates game.

A completable verb either may or must be accompanied by a complement noun. A complement noun is obligatory for all completable states. We can say The book weighs a pound but not *The book-weighs... Then, it appears to be obligatory for actions of the 'make' variety; we can say He made a table but not *ffe made... For other actions, however, it is optional. Thus, He sang a song and He sang are equally possible.

Location:

The knife is in the box (W.L. Chafe).

The cat is on the roof(W.~L. Chafe).

The key is under the rug (W.L. Chafe).

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Such sentences contain state verbs that are further specified as locative. A locative verb is accompanied by a noun that bears to it the relation of location.

In addition to locative states, there are locative processes, locative actions, and locative action-processes. Cf.:

The ship sank into the sea (W.L. Chafe).

Tom crawled under the table (W.L. Chafe).

Tom threw the knife into the box (W.L. Chafe).

Only state verbs require the accompaniment of a location noun. Non-stative verbs may also occur unaccompanied by a location noun, e.g.:

Tom fell off the chair (W.L. Chafe). — Tom fell (W.L. Chafe).

To sum up. It is the nature of the verb that determines the presence and relation of nouns. The most significant noun-verb relations, according to W.L. Chafe, are seven in number. They include patient, agent, experiencer, beneficiary, instrument, complement, and location. The relations of patient and agent have a fundamental character: every sentence contains a patient or agent noun, if not both, unless the verb is in the ambient category. Six of these relations - all but instrument - are determined by the presence within the verb of a certain selectional unit. A state or process verb dictates the presence of a patient noun. An action verb dictates an agent noun. An experiential verb calls for an experiencer, a benefactive verb - for a beneficiary, a completable verb - for a complement, and a locative verb — for a location. These various selectional units within the verb can co-occur, so that several different types of nouns may be attached to a verb at the same time.

Selectional units have two distinct functions. One is to dictate the presence of a noun related to the verb in a certain way. The other is to limit the choice of a lexical unit within the verb. Thus, a verb that has been specified selectionally as experiential is not only accompanied by an experiencer noun but is also limited to certain verb roots, such as want, know, see, and so on.

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