9.4. Actual division of the sentence

It is well known fact that the notional parts of the sentence form together the nominative meaning of the sentence. The division of the sentence into notional parts can be called the nominative division a long side of nominative division. The idea of the actual division has been put forward in theoretical linguistics. Its purpose is to reveal the correlative significance of the sentence parts from the point of view of their actual informative role in an utterance.

The main components of the actual division are the “theme” and the “rheme”. Theme expresses the starting point of the communication. Rheme expresses the basic informative part of the communication. Between the theme and the rheme are positioned intermediary parts of the actual division. The theme may or may not coincide with the subject of the sentence. The rheme with a predicate. The actual division finds its full expression only in a concrete context of speech. If it is stylistically neutral construction the theme is the subject and the rheme is the predicate and this kind of actual division is direct. The actual division in which the rheme is expressed by the subject is inverted.

The means of expressing the rheme:

1. Lexical meanings – particles  (only,even)

2. Logical stress.

3. Change of syntactic structure (It was he who did it)

4. Passive voice.

Means of expressing theme:

1. Definite article.

2. Word order.

The actual division is an active means of expressing functional meaning.

According to I. Vardual division which presents the ‘basic item’ and the ‘nucleus of the message’, ‘theme’ and ‘rheme’, ‘given’ and ‘new’ was called by V.Mathesius “the actual division of the sentence” as distinguished from its “formal division”. Actual division is the result of the influence of context and situation. Intonation is a very important means of actual division. K. G. Krushelnitskaya and A.V. de Grot view actual division as the reflection of the speaker’s attitude towards what is said. This point of view is less acceptable.

The point of the actual division of the sentence is in the lingual limitation of the amount of information carried by the message. 

9.5. Parts of the sentence

Parts of the sentence are a syntactic category constituted by the organic interaction of different linguistic units in speech.

It is important to observe that the division into parts of speech and the division into parts of the sentence are organically related. This does not call for much to explain. The part of speech classification is known to be based not only on the morphological and word-making characteristics of words but their semantic and syntactic features as well. The latter are particularly important for such parts of speech as have no morphological distinctions at all. A word (or a phrase) as a part of sentence may enter into various relations with the other parts of a given sentence. These mutual relationships are sometimes very complicated as being conditioned by different factors: lexical, morphological and syntactic proper.

Important observations in the theory of the parts of the sentence based on the interrelation of types of syntactic bond and types of syntactic content were made by A. I. Smirnitsky. A part of the sentence is defined as a typical combination of the given type of syntactic content and the given type of syntactic bond as regularly reproduced in speech. Different types of syntactic bond form a hierarchy where distinction should be made between predicative bond and non-predicative bond. On the level of the sentence elements this results in the opposition of principal parts and secondary parts.

The principal parts of the sentence.

The parts of the sentence which are connected by means of the predicative bond are principal parts. The subject and the predicate constitute the backbone of the sentence: without them the sentence would not exist at all, whereas all other parts may or may not be there, and if they are there, they serve to define or modify either the subject or the predicate, or each other. These are the core of the communicative unit. The non-predicative bond comprises attributive, completive and copulative relations.

The subject is one of the 2 main parts of the sentence. It denotes the thing whose action or characteristic is expressed by the predicate.  It is not dependent on any other part of the sentence. It may be expressed by different parts of speech, the most frequent ones being: a noun in the common case, a personal pronoun in the nominative case, a demonstrative pronoun occasionally, a substantivized adjective, a numeral, an infinitive, and a gerund. It may also be expressed by a phrase.

In Modern English there are two main types of subject that stand in contrast as opposed to each other in terms of content: the definite subject and the indefinite subject.

Definite subjects denote a thing-meant that can be clearly defined: a concrete object, process, quality, etc., e. g.:

(a) Fleur smiled. (b) To defend our Fatherland is our sacred duty. (c) Playing tennis is a pleasure. (d) Her prudence surprised me.

Indefinite subjects denote some indefinite person, a state of things or a certain situation, e. g.: (a) They say. (b) You never can tell. (c) One cannot be too careful. (d) It is rather cold. (e) It was easy to do so.

The common definition of the predicate in terms of modern linguistics is that it is a more or less complex structure with the verb or verb-phrase at its core. The predicate is one of the 2 main parts of the sentence. It denotes the action or property of the thing expressed by the subject. It is not dependent on any other part of the sentence. Ways of expressing the predicate are varied and their structure will better be considered under the heading of types of predicate.

It is sometimes claimed that the predicate agrees in number with the subject: when the subject is in the singular, the predicate is bound to be in the singular, and vice versa. However this statement is very doubtful.

• E.g. My family are early risers. + The question of concord refers to the level of phrases, not sentences.

The predicate can be a word, a word-morpheme or a phrase. If it consists of one word or word-morpheme it is simple. There are only 2 spheres of its use: 1.In sentences where the immediate neighborhood of the subject noun and the predicate noun or adjective is used to suggest the impossibility or absurdity of the idea that they might be connected. Sentences with this kind of simple nominal predicate are always exclamatory, e.g. My ideas obsolete! It would not do to call such sentences elliptical since the link verb cannot be added without completely changing the meaning of the sentence. 2. In the sentences in which the predicative comes first, the subject next, and no link verb is either used or possible. Such sentences seem to occur chiefly in colloquial style, e.g. “Splendid game, cricket”, remarked MR Barbecue-Smith heartily to no one in particular; “so thoroughly English”.

If the predicate is made up of more than one word it is called compound. The compound nominal predicate is always consists of a link verb and a predicative, which may be expressed by various parts of speech, usually a noun, an adjective, also a stative, or an adverb. Link verb – the idea of link suggests that its function is to connect the predicative with the subject. It is not correct. The true function of a link verb is not a connecting function. It expresses the tense and the mood in the predicate (to be also expresses number and person). There are sentences in which the finite verb is a predicate itself, i.e. it contains some information about the subject which may be taken separately, but at the same time the verb is followed by a predicative and is in so far a link verb. He came home tired - the finite verb in such sentences conveys a meaning of its own, but the main point of the sentence lies in the information conveyed by the predicative noun or adjective. The finite verb performs the function of a link verb.

Since such sentences have both a simple verbal predicate and a compound nominal predicate, they form a special or mixed type: double predicates.

In terms of complementation, predicates are reasonably classified into verbal (time presses, birds fly, the moon rose, etc.) and nominal (is happy, felt strong, got cool, grew old).

The secondary parts of the sentence

The Object is a secondary part of the sentence expressed by a verb, a noun, a substantival pronoun, an adjective, a numeral, or an adverb, and denoting a thing to which the action passes on, which is a result of the action, in reference to which an action is committed or a property is manifested, or denoting an action as object of another action. Objects differ form one another

• by their morphological composition, by the parts of speech or phrases which perform the function of object

• by the type of their relation to the action expressed by the verb (direct/indirect)

Classification of object:

1. Prepositional and non-prepositional objects. The dichotomic classification into prepositional and prepositionless objects seems practical and useful. It is to be noted, however, that the division based on the absence or presence of the preposition must be taken with an important point of reservation concerning the objects which have two forms: prepositional and prepositionless depending on the word-order in a given phrase, e. g.: to show him the book — to show the book to him; to give her the letter — to give the letter to her.

2.Morphological types (noun, pronoun, substantivized adjective, infinitive, gerund)

3.Direct/indirect, is applied only to objects expressed by nouns or pronouns. There are sentences in which the predicate is expressed by the verbs send, show, lend, give. These verbs usually take 2 different kinds of objects simultaneously: (1) an object expressing the thing which is sent, shown, lent, given, etc. (2) the person or persons to whom the thing is sent, shown, lent, given, etc. The difference between the 2 relations is clear enough: the direct object denotes the thing immediately affected by the action denoted by the predicate verb, whereas the indirect object expresses the person towards whom the thing is moved, e.g. We sent them a present. The indirect object stands 1st, the direct object comes after it.

In studying different kinds of objects it is also essential to take into account the possibility of the corresponding passive construction.

 The Adverbial Modifier.

The term ‘adverbial modifier’ cannot be said to be a very lucky one, as it is apt to convey erroneous (wrong, incorrect) ideas about the essence of this secondary part. They have nothing to do with adverbs and they modify not only verbs.

There are several ways of classifying adverbial modifiers:

1. According to their meaning – not a grammatical classification. However it may acquire some grammatical significance.

2. According to their morphological peculiarities – according to the parts of speech and to the phrase patterns. It has also something to do with word order, and stands in a certain relation to the classification according to meaning.adverb,preposition + noun,a noun without a preposition,infinitive or an infinitive phrase

3. According to the type of their head-word – is the syntactic classification proper. The meaning of the word (phrase) acting as modifier should be compatible with the meaning of the head-word.

Adverbial modifier of:

• Time and frequency,

• Place and direction,

• Manner and attendant,

• Circumstances,

• Cause,

• Purpose,

• Result,

• Condition,

• Concession,

• Degree