Task1. Comment on the relationships of the prepositions

1. The council turned our request down.

2. The basketball rolled down the stairs.

3. Herb turned the lights on.

4. The puzzle is on the table.

5. The knight searched the forest for the dragons.

6. We looked in vain, for he had already gone.

7. We found the shovel again after the January thaw.

8. Which is your favourite flavour of ice cream?

9. One of his paintings hangs in our museum.

10. A bird’s nest is generally made of vegetation and dirt.

11. Phillipe operated on the patient who had a torn cartilage.

12. The private detective glanced nervously at the three figures standing on the corner.

13. Ruth stood alone among the silent, protecting pines.

14. I am going to the skating rink with Kerry.

SRS-class. Classes of conjunctions, and prepositions.

Lecture 8 Syntax. Phrases: syntactic and semantic patterns

Syntax deals with phrases (syntactic groups of words, syntactic combinations, word group, word cluster) and sentences - language level or utterances – speech level.

The phrase is different from the sentence:

- it has no intonation which classifies the sentence into affirmative, interrogative and exclamatory ones.

- it has no predication or has implied predication

- it has no communicative point.

Russian scholars: Ф.Ф. Фортунатов, А.А.Шахматов, А. М. Пешковский. Foreign scholars: an American scholar of Descriptive Linguistics L. Bloomfield (1930s). The phrase is a linear structure, Blomfield classifies them into endocentric and exocentric ones. (cf. Иванова И.П. и др.). Ch. Hocket has four types of classification: type 1 – nucleus is in postposition (bad book); type 2 – nucleus is in preposition (research work); type 3 – nucleus is in the middle (as good as that); type 4 – nucleus is in and post position (do not find).

> The relations of the components are based on parataxis –free connections between the elements (Yes, please); or hypotaxis – interdependence between the elements.

> Another point is the arrangement of the phrase, e.g., school grammar / grammar school, a dog house / the house of the dog.

> The relations between the elements can be different. Fruit salad denotes ‘the salad from fruit’; fruit knife means ‘knife to cut or peel fruit’.

There are a great number of syntactic patterns of phrases consisting of notional and functional words. They are subjective, objective and can have full predicative connections and semi – predicative connections. The pupil is working hard – the pupil’s hard working – the pupil working hard – the hard-working pupil. The patterns are:

- noun + noun. It denotes the relations of quality between the determiner and determinant, e.g., silver spoon; or it signifies possessive relations, e.g., father’s pen, Beethoven symphony; or spatial relations, e.g., London Bridge.

- adjective + noun. Quality, e.g., good book

- verb + (preposition) noun. Relations between the action and the object (direct or indirect / oblique), e.g., to write a letter, to go in for sports

- verb + adverb. Way of performing an action, e.g., to do quickly

- adverb + adverb. Intensification of a quality, e.g., very good

- …

There should be mentioned the theory of three ranks by O. Jespersen which shows the hierarchy of syntactic relations. He cites the following example terribly cold weather and attributes them the ranks. Weather has the Primary rank, cold – the Secondary rank, and terribly – the Tertiary rank. He thinks that any complex combination of words is based the inequality of its components. The head – element is précised by the other which governs the third. He states that three ranks do not coincide with parts of speech: the primary words are necessarily the nouns; the secondary ones are not the adjectives, and so on. However, he sees the connection between the rank and the part of speech: finite forms of the verb can have a secondary rank. The non-finite form – the infinitive can have all ranks: to see is to believe (primary); she wants to rest (primary); a correct thing to do (secondary); he came here to see you (tertiary). In fact, he saw semantic relations behind the word order. Syntactic relations between the components of a phrase are governed by semantic combinability. E.g., if there is an action there should be an object it is aimed at. So, this relation is expressed by the verb + noun pattern. The phrase is not a sum of its components, e.g., the noun + noun pattern is a wide-spread and particular one: fruit salad – salad which ingredients are fruit; *salad fruit -? The syntactic order modifies the properties of combined units and attributes them the new ones. The study of word - combination engendered the theory of valency initiated by French linguist L. Tesniere. It emphasizes the core function of the verb which has valencies for the actants (subject and objects) and other participants of the event.

Types of syntactic relations: coordination (combined words are equal: Oxford and Cambridge, Mike and his friends rushed into the school – Mike and friends are in equal position to rushed), government (Combined words are not equal: fairly well, a list of names, bad for health).

Taxonomy of phrases.

All Phrase constructions are grouped in Objective, Attributive, Adverbial, Predicative ones.

Objective phrase

Types of objects: 1) the object governed without a preposition: to send the doctor away – to send away the doctor

2) the object governed by a preposition: sent for the doctor.

Adverbial phrase

In, up, away…

They are considered in different ways: as a secondary part of speech – postposition which is deprived of any lexical meaning (N.N. Amosova), as an adverbial modifier which have not only grammatical but also a lexical meaning. They cannot function independently but in combination with notional parts of speech.

Other adverbial modifiers: very, extremely, enough which are called intensifiers and determined in their left or right (e.g. enough) position.

Prepositional phrase

It consists of the preposition and its object. It may also include modifiers of the object, e.g. The dog crawled under the low wooden fence.

Attributive phrase

Attributive elements cannot change their positions being dependent on the governor: She was singing a new song – She was singing a song – * She was singing a song new.

Infinitive phrase.

An infinitive can have both modifiers and complements. Together, an infinitive, its modifiers, and its complements make up an infinitive phrase, e.g. We learned to operate a power saw.

Participial phrase

The part of this phrase consists of a participle. Together with its complements and modifiers it makes up a participial phrase, e.g. Arriving late, we sat at the rear.

Gerund phrase

It includes the gerund and a modifier, e.g. Quick thinking is essential in tennis; Max enjoys working quietly.

Appositive phrase

It is a noun or pronoun placed immediately after another word in a sentence to identify it or provide more information about it. It is usually set off by commas, e.g. The poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, explained how she writes; Dr. Roscoe, the mayor, spoke first.

Different aspects create the phrase: 1) morphological peculiarities of the head word. The valency of the head: word determines the participants of the event and their agreement. E.g., the psychological adjectives functioning as nominative part of the predicate combine with word(s) denoting the reason for the psychic state: He was anxious about the next assignment; We were worried about her behavour.

2) the part of speech; its grammatical meaning. E.g., abstract nouns are usual in predicative position with general significance.

3) syntactical functions of the elements: The verb is usual to be seen in predicative position, the adjective – in attributive position. Consequently, these functions create grammatical patterns.

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Task 1. Identify the phrases in the following examples

1. Hoping for an unusual setting, the producer wanted to use Stonehenge as a film location.

2. The South American oilbird feeds itself by searching for fruit at night.

3. Tracing crazy patterns on the water, the motorboat appeared out of control.

4. Frustrated by the long lines, the customer tried to show her irritation by complaining to the manager.

5. Inventing crossword puzzles is more difficult than it appears.

6. The Chinese were the first to use more than one name.

7. The chairperson presented the trophy, a tall silver cup with handles.

8. To hike from Mexico to Canada is my grandfather’s ambition.

9. Biking over the Rocky Mountains requires ten or fifteen gears.

Task 2. Rewrite the sentences, changing the second sentence of each pair into an appositive phrase.

1. Wilt Chamberlin coaches women athletes. Wilt Chamberlin was the NBA scoring leader for seven consecutive years.

2. Kent opened the present. The present was a gift certificate for $ 25 to his favourite store.

3. The will was read by the attorney. The attorney was a family friend.

4. Mrs. S.M. Child is probably not related to Julia Child. Mrs. S.M. Child wrote a 19^th century cookbook.

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