- •Grammar as a Constituent Part of Language System The Conception of Language. Language and Speech
- •The Basic Grammar Notions: Category, Meaning, Form and Function
- •The Dualistic Nature of Language Units
- •The Notion of Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic Relations
- •Language Levels and Their Basic Units.
- •The Basic Units of Morphology. The Theory of Oppositions The Word and its Basic Features
- •The Morpheme and the Morphemic Structure of the Word
- •The Theory of Oppositions
- •Lexico-Grammatical Classes of Words The Problem of Classifying Words
- •The Reduction of Oppositions
- •The Traditional Classification of Words
- •Adjectives
- •Notional and Functional Parts of Speech
- •The Field Structure of Parts of Speech
- •The Noun and Its Morphological Categories The Category of Number
- •The Problem of the Category of Case
- •The Category of Gender
- •The Article as a Noun Determiner
- •Some Theoretical Problems of English Adjectives and Adverbs The Category of Degrees of Comparison of Adjectives
- •The Syntactic Process of Substantivization of Adjectives
- •The “Stone Wall” Problem
- •The English Verb and Its Morphological Categories The Morphological Field of the Verb
- •The Category of Tense
- •The category of Aspect
- •The Category of Retrospective Coordination (perfect)
- •The Category of Mood
- •The Category of Voice
- •Reflexive Voice
- •The Reciprocal Voice
- •The Middle Voice
- •The Phrase Theory The Notion of the Phrase
- •Types of Syntactic Relations within a Phrase and Methods of Their Realization
- •Classification of Phrases
- •The Sentence Theory Simple Sentence as the Basic Unit of Syntax. The definition of the Sentence
- •Classification of Sentences
- •The Composite Sentence
- •Actual Division of the Sentence. Text Formation Based on the Actual Division of the Sentence
- •The Syntactic and Semantic Structures of the Sentence in Correlation
- •An Elementary Sentence and Its Modification in Speech Acts
- •The Text
- •Glossary
- •Литература
Classification of Phrases
Phrases can be classified on different principles. Taking into consideration the nature of syntactic relations within phrases they can be classified as coordinative, subordinative, interdependent and cumulative.
If we take into consideration a part-of-speech nature of the head word in subordinative phrases they can be classified as nominal (red pencil), adjectival (very brave), verbal (speaks English), adverbial (very quickly), pronominal (something new), infinitival (to stay late), gerundial (his reading), participial (walking slowly, recently built).
From the structural point of view it is important whether there is a head word within the phrase or not.
Hence, all the phrases can be subdivided into nuclear and nuclear-free. By nuclear phrases we understand those in the syntactic structure of which there is one constituent dominating the other. They are typical subordinative phrases.
Taking into consideration the position of the head word, all nuclear phrases are subdivided into progressive and regressive. We have a progressive nuclear phrase when the head word precedes the dependent word (or words), e.g. a book of poems, asked a question.
We have a regressive nuclear phrase when the head word follows the dependent word or words, e.g. a young tree, very soon.
By nuclear-free phrases we understand those which contain no head word. Mostly such phrases are coordinative, interdependent or cumulative.
Nuclear-free phrases in their turn can be subdivided into dependent and independent. Independent nuclear-free phrases are those which are recognized as grammatically organized structures without any additional context, e.g. a boy and a girl – no head word; she entered – no head word.
Dependent nuclear-free phrases can be recognized as grammatically organized structures with the help of some additional context. Usually they are cumulative phrases, e.g. his own (house), (send) him a telegram.
Thus phrases can be classified on different principles and when characterizing a phrase, several characteristics should be named to identify its concrete status among other phrases:
a diligent student. It’s a subordinative, nuclear, regressive noun-phrase;
black and white. It’s a coordinative, nuclear-free independent phrase;
our new (teacher). It’s a cumulative, nuclear-free dependent phrase;
he knows. It’s an interdependent, nuclear-free, independent phrase.
The Sentence Theory Simple Sentence as the Basic Unit of Syntax. The definition of the Sentence
The sentence is the basic unit of syntax. Due to the fact that it has many aspects it is difficult to give a complete definition of it. As a means of forming and expressing thoughts it is characterized from its logico-grammatical aspect. As a syntactic construction which reflects a situation of reality it is characterized from its syntactic and semantic aspects. As a unit of communication it is characterized by actual division and pragmatics. So it is clear that it is hard to give a definition of the sentence which could reflect all its aspects.
However when dealing with sentences we should be sure that we really deal with a sentence and not with some other segmental language unit. It means that we should know the specific features of the sentence. The sentence takes the top position in the hierarchy of language units.
Like words and phrases, the sentence is a naming unit. It names a situation of reality, but unlike words and phrases, the sentence is a unit of communication. Only a sentence can form and render a complete thought. Communicativeness presupposes all other basic features of the sentence, such as predicativeness, intonation pattern, syntactic and semantic structures. The sentence is mostly not a ready-made unit. It is formed and produced by the speaker in the actual process of communication.
Thus the draft definition of the sentence can be formulated the following way: The sentence is a syntactic structure, which is used in communication acts to form and render complete thoughts about situations of reality. It is characterized by nominative, communicative and pragmatic aspects. All these three aspects of the sentence are closely interconnected and presuppose each other.