The sentence and its general characteristics

Principles of the classification of phrases.

Phrases may be classified partly by their inner structure (syntactic relations between the components, morphological expression and position of components, or by order and arrangement) and partly by their external functioning (distribution, functions of the components).

Thus we may single out 3 types of syntactic relations within word-groups: subordination, coordination, interdependence. Accordingly, phrases are usually classified into subordinate (подчинительные), coordinate (сочинительные), and predicative (предикативные). Sometimes the 4^th type, appositive phrases (приложение), is mentioned: doctor Brown; Mr Campbell, the lawyer.

Phrases may be also classified according to the morphological expression of their members (N + V, Adv + Adj, N + and N), position of the components (A + N, N + A) and the number of components (V + N, V + N + N).

Subordinate phrases are classified according to the morphological expression of the headword into: phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, etc.

A sentence is the largest and most complicated unit of language and at the same time it is the smallest unit of speech, or the smallest utterance. In speech sentences are not given ready-made, they are created by the speaker. But they are built according to patterns existing in the language. So concrete sentences belong to speech. Patterns according to which they are build belong to language.

A sentence has two basic meaningful functions: naming and communicative. Sentences name situations and events of objective reality and convey information, expressing complete thoughts or feelings. The sentence is a structural, semantic and communicative unity. Accordingly the three main aspects of the sentence are syntactic, semantic and logico-communicative.

The syntactic structure of the sentence can be analysed at two levels: pre-functional (sentence constituents are words and word groups) and functional (sentence constituents are parts of the sentence).

The semantic structure of the sentence is a reflection of a certain situation or event which includes a process, the doer and the objects of the process and certain circumstances and conditions of its realization.

The semantic structure of the sentence is often called deep structure, the syntactic structure is called surface structure. There is no direct correspondence between deep and surface structure:

John opened the door. NVN – doer (agent), action, object.

The key opened the door. NVN – instrument, action, object.

These two aspects characterize the sentence as a unit of language. Logico-communicative aspect characterizes the sentence as a unit of speech, or utterance. The sentence as a unit of communication usually consists of two parts: the topic for discussion, i.e. something about which a statement is made, and the information about the topic, or the statement itself.

The division into two parts, the theme and the rheme, is called the actual sentence division, or the functional sentence perspective.

There is one more aspect of the sentence as a unit of speech – the use of sentences in social interaction, their function in particular contexts of use. For example, the statement I have no cigarettes can be analysed from the point of view of the intentions of the speaker, the effect of the utterance in the interlocutor [ɪntə'lɔkjətə] (собеседник), the appropriateness of the utterance in a given context. This aspect is called pragmatic.

Different aspects of the sentence are reflected in numerous definitions, which may be logical, psychological, structural, etc.

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