Verb as the predicative centre of the sentence. The notion of the “elementary” sentence

The structural pattern of the sentence is determined by the valency of the verb-predicate. The verb functions as the central predicative organizer of the sentence constituents. The subdivision of all notional sentence parts into obligatory and optional in accord with the valency of the verb-predicate makes it possible to distinguish the category of “elementary sentence”. It is a sentence in which all the positions are obligatory; in other words, an “elementary sentence” includes, besides the principal parts, only complementive modifiers.

The elementary sentence coincides structurally with the so-called unexpanded simple sentence, a monopredicative sentence, which includes only obligatory nominative parts. The expanded simple sentence includes also some optional parts which do not violate the syntactic status of the simple sentence, i.e. do not make it into a composite or semi-composite sentence. For example, the sentence ‘ He gave me the book’ is unexpanded, because all the nominative parts of this sentence are required by the obligatory valency of the verb to give: *He gave…; He gave me… - these constructions would be semantically and structurally deficient. The sentence ‘He gave me a very interesting book’ is expanded, because it includes an expansion, the attribute-supplement very interesting. The second sentence is reducible to the elementary unexpanded sentence built on the syntagmatic pattern of the bicomplementive verb to give.

4. The two axes of the sentence; their correlation with complete and elliptical sentences.

The two principal parts of the sentence, the subject and the predicate, with the subordinate secondary parts attached to them are the two constitutive members or “axes” of the sentence: the subject group (the subject “axis”) and the predicate group (the predicate “axis”). On the basis of their representation sentences are subdivided into complete sentences and incomplete sentences: in complete sentences both the subject group and the predicate group are present; they are also called “two-member sentences” or “two-axis sentences ”; if only one axis is expressed the sentence is defined as incomplete; it is also called “ one-member sentence”, “one-axis sentence”.

Traditionally, one-axis sentences and elliptical sentences are distinguished in the following way: only those sentences in which the nominative parts are contextually omitted are considered to be elliptical: Who is there?–Your brother. Since the missing parts are easily restored (“understood”) from the context, elliptical sentences are treated as two-member sentences. “Genuine” one-member sentences are traditionally treated as those which do not imply the missing member on contextual lines: What a nice day! But, strictly speaking, “ellipsis” can affect both two-axis sentences and one-axis sentences.

Still, in some cases the ellipsis is “free”, determined by direct contextual axis-implications, and in other sentences the ellipsis is “fixed”, and the absent axis cannot be restored with the same ease and accuracy. For example, the following elliptical structures are fixed in the system of language: emotionally colored name-callings: Brute!; psychologically tense descriptions: Night. Silence. No one in sight (so-called nominative sentences); various emphatic constructions: To ask a question like this! What a joy!; some conversational formulas: Thank you! Nice meeting you!; etc. Fixed one-axis sentences are also related to two-axis sentences, though the associations are indirect and vague: Brute! – You are a brute; I consider you a brute. There is no strictly defined demarcation line between free and fixed one-axis sentences: there is a continuum of sentences, related to the two-axis sentences by direct or indirect associations: Open the door. – You open the door; Thank you! – I thank you.

As for negation and affirmation formulas (Yes; No; All right), vocative sentences (Ladies and gentlemen! Dear friends!), greeting and parting formulas (Hello! Good-bye!) and other similar constructions, they constitute the periphery of the category of the sentence: they are not exactly word-sentences, but rather sentence-representatives, related to the corresponding two-axis sentences. Most of them exist only in syntagmatic combinations with full-sense antecedent predicative constructions: Are you going to come? – No (= I am not going to come). The exclamations of interjectional type My God! For heaven’s sake! Gosh! are not related to any two-axis constructions being “pseudo-sentences”, or “non-communicative utterances” and rendering no situational nomination, predication or informative perspective of any kind.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11