Direct word order

The grammatical function of word order

WORD ORDER

§ 114. The words in an English sentence are arranged in a certain order, which is fixed for every type of the sentence, and is therefore meaningful. We find several principles determining word order in a sentence, so that word order fulfils several functions - grammatical, emphatic, or communicative, and linking. These functions are manifested in different arrangements of the parts of the sentence.

§ 115. The main function of word order is to express grammati­cal relations and determine the grammatical status of a word by fixing its position in the sentence. There exist two ways of arranging words - direct word order and inverted word order.

§ 116. The most common pattern for the arrangement of the main parts in a declarative sentence is Subject - Predicate - (Object), which is called direct word order. Direct word order is also employed in pronominal questions to the subject or to its attribute.

Direct word order allows of only few variations in the fixed pattern, and then only for the secondary parts. Thus if there are two objects, the indirect one precedes the direct one, or the prepositional follows the direct one. Thus the pattern has the following form:

Subject - Predicate -

Indirect object - Direct object Direct object - Prepositional object

The birds have come.

Ann has seen this film.

The boy gave me no answer.

The boy gave no answer to me.

As to other secondary parts of the sentence, such as attributes and adverbial modifiers, their position is less fixed. Usually those words that are closely connected tend to be placed together. Accordingly secondary parts referring to their headwords are placed close to them, or are incorporated into, or else frame them up. Thus attributes either premodify or postmodify or frame up their headwords: a bright morning, the problems involved, the scene familiar to us, the happiest man alive, the best skier in the world.

Adverbials and different form words seem to be the most movable parts in the sentence. Their mobility is partly accounted for by their varied reference to different parts of the sentence.

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