Functions of word order in English and types of inversion.

The most common pattern for the arrangement of the main parts in a declarative sentence is Subject - Predicate - (Object), which is called direct word order.

An unusual position of any part of the sentence may be treated as inversion in the broad sense of the word. There is 2 structural types of inversion: full (predicate + subject) and partial (auxiliary verb (operator) + subject + notional part).

The main functions of word order.

1. Grammatical function expresses grammatical relations. PetersawJohn.

Full inversionmarks the second part of a sentence of proportional agreement (not obligatory) The more he thought of it, the less clear was the matter.

Partial inversion is used - to distinguish types of sentences: questions, exclamations or imperative sentences having the form of a negative question. Is it really true? Don't you do it! - to indicate subordination in conditional and concessive clauses introduced asyndetically. Were she asked, she would say.

2. Communicative function indicates information focus (end-focus)

Full inversion is used - after introductory there. There was a girt whom he loved, there goes our bus. - after fronted adverbial expressions of place (direction). Here comes Edward.

Partial inversion is used - after so , neither, nor in a ?second clause?, or ?short response?. He's hungry. - So am I. - after as, than, so. She was well-read as were most of her friends.

3. Emphatic function makes part of the sentence prominent by placing the rheme before the theme.

Full inversion is used - after fronted postpositions (adverbs or prepositions). I stopped the car and up walked a policeman. - after fronted predicatives. Tall and graceful was Ann.

Partial inversion is used - after fronted negative and/or restrictive adverbs or expressions: hardly, seldom, rarefy, little, never, expression with only. Only after we met her, did we realize how clever she was. - after adverbs, adverbial phrases or clauses (often of manner). Well do I remember the day. - after as, than, so: So shocked was he that he hardly said a word. - after fronted objects, especially Not /No + Object. Not a single word did she say.

28. Principles of classification of simple sentences.

Definitions. Logical: A sentence is a proposition expressed by words. A proposition is the semantic invariant of all the members of modal and communicative paradigms of sentences and their transforms. But besides sentences which contain propositions there are interrogative and negative sentences. Speech is emotional. There is no one to one relationship. Then a sentence can be grammatically correct, but from the point of view of logic it won?t be correct, true to life (Water is a gas). Laws of thinking are universal but there are many languages. Grammar and Logic don?t coincide.

Structural: A sentence is a subject-predicate structure. Grammatical subject can only be defined in terms of the sentence. Moreover the grammatical subject often does not indicate what we are ?talking about? (The birds have eaten all the fruit. It is getting cold). Besides, this definition leaves out verbless sentences. There are one-member sentences. They are non-sentences? Conclusion ? a sentence is a structural scheme.

Phonological: A sentence is a flow of speech between 2 pauses. But speech is made up of incomplete, interrupted, unfinished, or even quite chaotic sentences. Speech is made up of utterances but utterances seldom correspond to sentences.

Thus, it is more preferable to describe a sentence than to define it. The main peculiar features of the sentence are:

- integrity,

- syntactic independence,

- grammatical completeness,

- semantic completeness,

- communicative completeness,

- communicative functioning,

- predicativity,

- modality,

- intonational completeness.

Principles of classification of simple sentences. According to the purpose of the utterance: declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory. Prof. Ilyish: before dividing sentences into 3 classes we should divide them into emotional and non-emotional and within emotional we can establish 4 classes.

As to their structure:

1) simple (sentence with only one predication);

2) composite (sentence with more than one predication):

- compound (composite sentence with coordinated clauses);

- (composite sentence containing subordinated clauses);

3) two-member (sentence with full predicate) and one- member

4) extended (sentence containing some words besides the predication), unextended (sentence containing only subject and predicate) and contracted (sentence with several subjects to one predicate or several predicates to one subject);

5) elliptical (incomplete)

As to their cathegories.

According to the grammatical (syntactical) cathegory of presentation: statement, question.

According to the cathegory of information: affirmation, negation.

According to the cathegory of expressiveness: emphatic, non-emphatic.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 680