Word-combination (phrase)

SYNTAX

LECTURE 7-8

The Category of Mood

The category of mood expresses the relation of nominative content of the sentence towards reality. Hence there are two moods – one presenting the action as real and the other presenting the action as unreal. Real actions are expressed by the indicative mood and unreal are expressed by the oblique mood.

I go to university. vs. He suggests I (should) go to university.

As for the imperative mood, traditionally it has been referred to as a separate mood.

1. Syntax treats phrases and sentences. Despite all the controversies regarding the essence and nature of the phrase, the most adequate interpretation seems to be as follows: the phrase is any syntactically organized group including either notional words or both notional and functional words connected with any of the existent types of syntactic connection.

The difference between the phrase and the sentence is fundamental: the phrase is a nominative unit denoting a complex referent (phenomenon of reality) analyzable into its component elements together with various relations between them; the sentence is a unit of predication which, naming a certain situational event, shows the relation of the denoted event towards reality.

The sentence can be defined as an immediate integral unit used in speech communication, built up of words according to a definite syntactic pattern and characterized by predicativity. It possesses the following properties:

1. Predicativity.

2. Form.

3. Intonation pattern.

Definition. Word-combination, or phrase, alongside with sentence is the main unit of syntax. Minimal word-combination is bicomponent, maximal may be theoretically unlimited. There is no mutually accepted definition of this syntactical unit and there are serious divergences in its treatment in Russian linguistics and abroad. Traditional point of view in domestic linguistics became interpretation of word-combination as only a subordinative structure. But there still exists a large number of domestic scholars as well as foreign ones who consider word-combination as any syntactically organized group of words no matter what kind of relations it is based on.

Linguists discuss different classifications of phrases, all of them having their own advantages.

1) The traditional classification of phrases is based on the part of speech status of the phrase constituents.

2) According to the theory worked out by the American linguist L. Bloomfield, phrases can be classified into two groups: endocentric and exocentric. Endocentric — all phrases where one or any of constituent elements can function in a larger structure like the whole group. Exocentric are the phrases where none of the constituent elements can substitute the whole group in a larger structure.

3) According to the classification based on the internal structure of phrases, two groups can be singled out: kernel phrases and kernel-free phrases.

Kernel phrases are grammatically organized structures in which one element dominates the others.

4) according to the type of syntactical connection between members:

Coordination: coordinate phrases consist of two or more syntactically equivalent units joined in a cluster which functions as a single unit. The member units can be potentially joined together by means of a coordinate conjunction.

Subordination: subordinate phrasesare structures in which one of the members is syntactically the leading element of the phrase. This dominating element is called the head-word, or the kernel, and can be expressed by different parts of speech.

L.Elmslev introduced also predicative relations describing the resulting classification in the following way: 1) both elements are independent of each other (coordination); 2) the first element depends on the second, but the second doesn't depend on the first (subordination); 3) the first element depends on the second and the second depends on the first (predicative link).

Accumulation: the accumulative connection is present when no other type of syntactic connection can be identified (sharp green).

5) Syntactic relations of the phrase constituents are divided into two main types: agreement and government. Agreement takes place when the subordinate word assumes a form similar to that of the word to which it is subordinate. Government takes place when the subordinate word is used in a certain form required by its head word, the form of the subordinate word not coinciding with the form of the head word. There is also a djoinment, that is described as absence both of agreement and of government.

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