The Text

Sentences in continual speech are not used in isolation: they are interconnected both semantically and syntactically. It has been recently shown in linguistics that sentences in speech come under certain grammatical arrangements and combine with one another on strictly syntactic lines in the formation of larger stretches of both oral talk and written text.

The general idea of a sequence of sentences forming a text implies a strictly topical stretch of talk, i.e. a continual succession of sentences centering on а common informative purpose. This understanding of the text is syntactically relevant, because the text is interpreted аs a lingual element (the supra-sentential construction) with its two distinguishing features: 1) semantic (topical) unity, and 2) semantico-syntactic cohesion.

The primary division of sentence sequences in speech is based on the communicative direction of their component sentences. From this point of view monologue sequences and dialogue sequences are discriminated. In a monologue, sentences connected in a continual sequence are directed from one speaker to his one or several listeners. Thus, the sequence of this type can be characterized as a оnе-direction sequence.

E.g.:

It was in the spring of his thirty-fifth year that father married my mother, then a country school teacher, and in the following spring I came wriggling and crying into the world. Something happened to the two people. They became ambitious. The American passion for getting up in the world took possession of them.

As different from this, sentences in a dialogue sequence are uttered by the speakers-interlocutors in turn, sо that they are directed, as it were, to meet one another. The sequence of this type is characterized as a two-direction sequence.

E.g.: Teacher: Hawkins, what is a synonym ?

Student: It’s a word you use in place of another when you cannot spell the other one.

The direction of communication should be looked upon as a deeper characteristic of the sentence-sequence than its outer formal presentation (i.e. a monologue vs a dialogue). In order to emphasize these deep distinguishing features of the two types of sequences we named them by the types of the sеntence-connection used.

The formation of a one-direction sequence is based on syntactic cumulation of sentences (as different from syntactic composition building composite sentences). The supra-sentential construction of one-direction communicative type is called a cumulative sequence or a "cumuleme".

The formation of two-direction sequence is based on its sentences being positioned to meet one another. This type of sentence-connection is termed "occursive". The supra-sentential construction based on occursive connection is named by the term "occurseme".

P rom the hierarchical point of view the occurseme as an element of the system occupies a place above the cumuleme, because the occurseme can be constructed by two or more cumulemes, but not vice versa. E.g.:

"I sее your opponent Miss Stoker has just arrived. Would you care to say something about the little incident earlier in the week?" - "I would just like to say this. A rather clumsy attempt has been made to take advantage of a perfectly ordinary piece of good manners. But I intend to fight this election".

Prom the functional point of view the cumuleme and occurseme are regarded, respectively, as topical and exchange-topical components of the text in general. The cumuleme represents an instance of the monologue text or "discourse"; the occurseme constitutes a part of the dialogue text, or "conversation".

Sentences in a cumulative sequence can be connected either "prospectively" or "retrospective1у". Prospective ("epiphoric", "cataphoric") cumulation is effected by the connective elements that relate the given sentence to one that is to follow it. In other words, a prospective connector signals a continuation of speech: the sentence containing it is semantically incomplete. Very often prospective connectors are notional words that perform the cumulative function for the nonce. E.g.:

Let me tell you one thing. Вill Sampson and Margo Channing are getting married.

As different from prospective cumulation retrospective ("anaphoric") cumulation is effected by connective elements that relate the given sentence to the one that precedes it and is semantically complete by itself. Retrospective cumulation is the more important type of sentenee-connection of the two; it is the basic type of cumulation in ordinary speech. E.g.:

You are an improbable person, Eve, and so am I. We have that in common.

On the basis of the functional nature of connectors cumulation is divided into two fundamental types: conjunctive cumulation, and correlative cumulation. Conjunctive cumulation is effected by conjunction-like connectors. To these belong : 1) coordinative and subordinative conjunctions; 2) adverbial and parenthetical sentence-connectors: then, yet, however, consequently, hence, besides, moreover, nevertheless, etc. Cf.:

I wanted to play for time: the longer it took for the official opinion to crystallize the better. But I was in an awkward position. He was as realistic as a man could be. Yet, like most realistic men, he detested having the hard truth brought to him by another.

Correlative cumulation is effected by a pair of elements one of which, the "succeedent" refers to the other, the "antecedent", used in the foregoing sentence. By means of this reference the succeeding sentence is related to the preceding one, or else vice versa. As we see, by its direction correlative cumulation may be either retrospective or prospective, as different from the conjunctive cumulation, which is only retrospective.

Correlative cumulation is divided into substitutional connection, and representative connection. Substitutional cumulation is based on the use of substitutes. E.g.:

Rose was speaking carefully. He knew precisely what Douglas was aiming at.

Representative cumulation is based on representative elements which refer to one another without the factor of replacement. It may also be achieved by repetition. Cf.:

Gilbey took a capsule, and closed his eyes. He sat there with his eyes closed, hand on heart, for some minutes. A good many of them were lonely, pointlessly lonely. They were irremediably lonely in the teeming town, lonely, and also frightened.

A cumuleme (cumulative supra-sentential construction) is formed by two or more independent sentences making up a topical syntactic unity. The first of the sentences in a cumuleme is its "leading" sentence, the succeeding sentences are "sequential".

The cumuleme is delimited in the text by a finalizing intonation contour (cumuleme-contour) with a prolonged pause (cumuleme-pause). The cumuleme, like a sentence, is a universal unit of language, because it is used in all the functional varieties of speech, such as: literary, newspaper, scientific, poetical, colloquial, etc. styles.

The basic semantic types of cumulemes are "factual" (narrative and descriptive), “modal” (reasoning, perceptive, etc.) and "mixed". Cf. the following factual and modal cumulemes:

She was looking older that night, the skin reddened round her cheek-bones. But it made no difference to her prettiness (descriptive cumuleme). That's what I аm asking you. I want you to give him room to manoeuvre (reasoning cumuleme). The basic semantic and syntactic properties of the two principal types of supra-sentential constructions are shown in the table.

Table 4

Types of constructions criteria	instance of a monologue text		instance of a dialogue text
functional criterion	discourse		conversation
communicative direction of sentences	one-direction sequence		two-direction sequence
type of sentence connection	cumulative sequence (cumuleme)		occursive sequence (occurseme)
semantics of component sentences	factual cumuleme	modal cumuleme	-

Cumuleme in writing is regularly expressed by a paragraph, but the two units are not wholly identical: 1) the paragraph as a stretch of written text is always delimited by a new (indented) line at the beginning and an incomplete line at the close; with the cumuleme it is not always the case, it being a unit of both written and oral speech; 2) the paragraph is a polyfunctional unit of written speech representing on paper both, the cumuleme and the parts of the occurseme; 3) the paragraph in a monologue speech can contain more than one cumuleme; 4) the paragraph in a monologue speech can contain only one sentence (usually expressing emphasis), which is impossible with the cumuleme.

On the other hand, the cumuleme cannot be prolonged beyond the limits of the paragraph. In spite of all the differences described above, the paragraph as a literary-compositional (and not a purely syntactical) unit of the text, does as a rule present a cumuleme: the two units, if not identical, are closely correlative.

The introduction of the notion of cumuleme in linguistics helps specify the two peculiar syntactic phenomena which are located on the border-line between the sentence and the sentential sequence. The first of these is called "parcellation”. The parcellated construction ("parcellatum") presents two or more collocations (“parcellas") separated by a sentence-tone but related to one another as parts of one and the same sentence. In writing the parts, i.e., respectively, the "leading parcella" and the "sequential parcella" are delimited by a full stop (finality mark). E.g.: Each of them carried a notebook, in which whenever the great man spoke, he desperately scribbled. Straight from the horse's mouth.

The parcellated construction is produced as a result of transforming a sentence into a cumuleme effected for the purpose of adding topical significance to the sequential parcella (see the above example).

The second of the border-line phenomena in question is the opposite of parcellation, it consists in forcing two different sentences into one, i.e. in transposing a cumuleme into a sentence. The cumuleme-sentence construction is characteristic of uncareful and familiar speech; in a literary text it is used for the sake of giving a vivid verbal characteristic to a personage or exposing his mental perceptions. E.g.: He kept thinking he would write to her - he had no other girl acquaintance now; and just before he entered art school he did this, penning a little note saying that he remembered pleasantly their ride; and when was she coming ?

As is sееn from the example, one of the means of transposing a cumuleme into a sentence in literary speech is the use of half-finality punctuation marks (here: a dash and a semicolon).

Neither cumulemes nor paragraphs form the upper limit of textual units of speech. Above the process of cumulation as syntactic connection of separate sentences, supra-cumulation should be discriminated as connection of cumulemes and paragraphs into larger textual unities (i.e. paragraph or cumuleme groupings). Stretches of text larger than primary paragraph groupings can be supra-cumulated to one another forming such textual unities as chapters and other compositional divisions.