Structural Schemes of the Sentence. The Elementary Sentence

Simple sentence. Structural aspect.

Sentences can be classified according to their structural, semantic and pragmatic properties. In this lecture we will deal with structural classifications. One traditional scheme for classifying English sentences is by the number and types of finite clauses: sentences are divided into simple and composite, the latter consisting of two or more clauses.

Simple sentences are usually classified into one-member and two-member. This distinction is based on a difference in the main parts of a sentence. One-member sentences are further divided into: a) nominal or "naming" sentences; b) infinitival sentences.

Nominal sentences name a person or thing. The main member in such sentences is expressed by a noun. e.g. Winter. Snow. The main member of infinitival sentences is expressed by an infinitive. Infinitival sentences are fairly common in spoken English and literary prose.

Prof. Pocheptsov suggests the following classification of sentences. All sentences are divided into sentences proper and quasi-sentences. Sentences proper are communications, they have the subject-predicate base and differ in the way they relate contents to reality. Quasi-sentences are not communications, they do not have the subject-predicate base. These are either vocatives (John), or interjectional sentences expressing emotions (Oh), or meta-communicative sentences used to open or close a speech contact (Good day).

Sentences proper are further divided into declarative (John came), interrogative (Did John come), optative (If John came) and inductive (Come).

Constituent Structure of the Sentence. The study of the constituent structure of the sentence presupposes analysis of its parts. The established classification of sentence parts reflects their important property – whether or not they are involved in forming the predicative center of the sentence. Traditionally the main and the secondary parts have been singled out. Besides these two types there is one more — elements which are said to stand outside the sentence structure. The two generally recognized main parts are the subject and the predicate. The secondary parts include the object, the adverbial modifier, and the attribute. Other secondary parts are also sometimes mentioned — the apposition (its relation to the attribute is variously interpreted), the objective predicative, and occasionally some other parts, too.

There are no structural limits for increasing the size of the sentence and expanding its structure, however, the opposite procedure has a specific limit, the limit being the elementary sentence.

Omission of some element of the elementary sentence destroys it as a structural and semantic unit.

The structural scheme of the sentence is a sentence structure minimal by its composition and simplest by grammatical and semantic structure. A construction built according to a structural scheme and realizing all of its components is called an elementary sentence.

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