Communicative Dynamism within a Composite Sentence( Compound and Complex) and a Supra-phrasal Unit

Syntactic Processes in the Complex Sentence.

Levels of Subordination

There are two basic types of subordination: parallel and consecutive. In parallel subordination sub-clauses refer to one and the same principal clause. (However hard he was working, whatever was happening, he never forgot me). Consecutive subordination presents a hierarchy of clausal levels. In this hierarchy one subordinate clause is commonly subordinated to another (I’ve no idea [1] why she said [2]she couldn’t call on us at the time [3]I had suggested).

To the universally recognized processes within a complex sentence there refer contamination, parcellation andemancipation. In contamination two syntactic and semantic relations are fused, which results in contaminated (mixed) clauses { This man looked as if hewere suffering ( J.Galsworthy). The clause underlined can be analyzed as a contamination of a predicative and an adverbial clause of unreal comparison. Parcellation consists in separating a sub-clause from the principal clause to rhematize (and emphasize) it (But princess Dragomiroff says that she married an Englishman. Whose name she cannot remember (A. Christie). Emancipation consists in a sub-clause turning into an independent sentence with a connective turning into an adverbial element (Supposing he comes? That he should have come to that! If only he were here today!).

In a compound sentence both parts are communicatively equal if they are connected by copulative and adversative coordination. If they are connected by causative and consecutive coordination, the second coordinative clause becomes rhematic (Come to Venice early in the morning and you will see a city bathed in a sea of light).

In a complex sentence the principal clause dominates sub-clauses structurally, but communicatively it is insignificant. It is a sheer introducer of sub-clauses, it expresses modality and general assessment of the information carried by a sub-clause (I returned, and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, neither yet the bread to the wise, nor yet the riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to the men of skill, but time and chance happenth to them all (Ecclesiastes). Placed in the final position sub-clauses are usually rhematic. In a complex sentence with a complement sub-clause it is the main clause which is rhematic (It is her bright joy that surprised me).A parcellated sub-clause becomes rhematized (See parcellation). In a complex sentence based on specification it is the second part which is rhematic (Life is very mixed, sir: it is not all poetry and it is not all gaiety (B.Shaw).

Within a supra-phrasal unit sentences, constituting it, are connected by different means of cohesion: coordination, subordination, specification, reiteration of all kind, anaphoric pronouns, ellipsis, the definite article, a peculiar distribution of tenses, etc. Here we distinguish two communicative parts: the topic and the comment. The topic strives to the beginning. The comment comes last carrying either new or most important information (He is the kind of young man who does everything well. He is good at games, an excellent shot, a good amateur actor and can tell a first-rate story ( A. Christie ).

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