Modern English Grammar

there is a botanical gardens in our town

there were only three of us there comes his joy

The grammatical organisation of predicates is much more complicated. The predicate can be composed of several different structures. It is just this variety of the predicate that makes us recognise not one basic English sentence pattern but several.

In terms of modern linguistics, the predicate is reasonably defined as the IC of the sentence presented by a finite-form of the verb, if even in its zero-alternant.

Predicates with zero-alternants offer special difficulties on the point of their analysis as relevant to the problem of ellipsis which has always been a disputable question in grammar learning.

Various criteria of classifying different kind of predicate have been set up by grammarians. 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. This is perfectly reasonable and in point of fact agrees with the advice of traditional grammars to identify a predicate by looking for the verb. The sentence, indeed, almost always exists for the sake of expressing by means of a verb, an action, state or being. The verb which is always in key position is the heart of the matter and certain qualities of the verb in any language determine important elements in the structural meaning of the predicate. These features will engage our attention next. To begin with, the predicate may be composed of a word, a phrase or an entire clause. When it is a notional word, it is naturally not only structural but the notional predicate as well.

The predicate can be a word, a word-morpheme or a phrase. If it consists of one word or word-morpheme it is simple; if it is made up of more than one word it is called compound. 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 two types of predicates in active syntax may be diagrammed as follows:

A. Verbal Predicate Simple Tastes differ.

Compound One must do one's duty.

B. Nominal Predicate

Simple Quite serious all this!

Compound The picture was beautiful.

The multiplicity of ways in which predication can be expressed in active syntax permits a very large number of sentence-patterns to be built in present-day English. We find here both points of coincidence with other languages and special peculiarities of sentence-patterning conditioned by the whole course of language development.

Predication, with its immediate relevance to the syntactic categories of person, time and modality, is known to be expressed not only morphologically. Syntactic arrangement and intonation may do this duty as well.

Time relations, for instance, may find their expression in syntactic structures without any morphological devices indicating time.

The one-member sentence Fire!, depending on the context, linguistic or situational, may be used as:

a stylistic alternative of the imperative sentence meaning: а) стріляй! b) запали вогонь! с) принеси вогню!

a stylistic alternative of a declarative sentence stating a fact: видно вогонь.

Similarly in Russian: огонь! а) стреляй! b) зажги огонь or принеси огня! с) виден огонь.

The multiplicity of syntactic ways in which modality and time relations as well as the category of person may be expressed in infinitival clauses is also well known. Examples are commonplace.

Run away! Go to the east! (Galsworthy)

To think that he should be tortured so -- her Frank! (Dreiser)

Cf. Одну минуту, еще одну минуту, видеть ее, проститься, пожать ей руку! (Лермонтов)

Возможно ли! Меня продать! -- Меня за поцелуй глупца... (Лермонтов)

In the theory of English structure the term "sentence analysis" is open to more than one interpretation.

Structural grammatical studies of some modern linguists have abandoned many of the commonly held views of syntax. With regard to the methodology employed their linguistic approach differs from former treatments in language learning. To begin with, distinction must be made between the „mentalistic" and the „mechanistic" approach to sentence analysis.

By "mentalistic" approach we mean the"parts of the sentence" analysis based on consideration of semantic relationships between the sentence elements.

The "mechanistic" approach is known to have originated in USA in nineteen forties. It is associated primarily with the names of Bloomfield, Fries, Harris and Gleason. Claimed to be entirely formal, the "mechanistic" approach is based only on the structural relations of sentence elements, i. e. their position in the speech chain. To make the distinction between the two approaches clear consider the following examples: "mentalistically" (i. e. analysing sentences by putting questions) "to invite students" and "invitation of students" are parsed as syntactic structures with objects denoting the person towards whom the action is directed.

In terms of "mechanistic" analysis, students and of students would be different sentence elements because they differ in terms of structure (expression plane).

The new method of sentence analysis is known as the method of immediate constituents (IC's). As we have already pointed out, the concept of IC was first introduced by L. Bloomfield and later on developed by other linguists.

The structural grouping of sentence elements into IC's has naturally its own system in each language. It has been recognised that English has a dichotomous structure.

The concept of immediate constituents (IC's) is important both in morphology and syntax. An immediate constituent is a group of linguistic elements which functions as a unit in some larger whole.

The study of syntax is greatly facilitated by studying the types of immediate constituents which occur. We have learned to call the direct components of the sentence "groups". In terms of modern linguistics they are immediate constituents.

A basic sentence pattern consists first of all of a subject and a predicate. These are called the immediate constituents of the sentence. They are constituents in the sense that they constitute, or make up, the sentence. They are immediate in the sense that they act immediately on one another: the whole meaning of the one applies to the whole meaning of the other.

The subject of a basic sentence is a noun cluster and the predicate is a verb cluster, we can therefore say that the immediate constituents (IC's) of a sentence are a noun cluster and a verb cluster. Each of the IC's of the sentence can in turn be divided to get IC's at the next lower level. For example, the noun cluster of a sentence may consist of a determiner plus a noun. In this case, the construction may be cut between the determiner and the noun, e. g. the girl. The IC's of this noun cluster are the and girl. The verb cluster of the sentence may be a verb plus a noun cluster (played the piano). This cluster can be cut into IC's as follows:

played/the piano.

The IC analysis is, in fact, nothing very startling to traditional grammar. It will always remind us of what we learned as the direct components of the sentence: "subject group" and "predicate group". But it proceeds further down and includes the division of the sentence into its ultimate constituents.

In terms of Ch. Fries' distributional model of syntactic description, the sentence My brother met his friend there is represented by the following scheme:



The basic assumption of this approach to the grammatical analysis of sentences is that all the structural signals in English are strictly formal matters that can be described in physical terms of forms, and arrangements of order. The formal signals of structural meanings operate in a system and this is to say that the items of forms and arrangement have signalling significance only as they are parts of patterns in a structural whole.

In terms of the IC's model prevalent in structural linguistics, the sentence is represented not as a linear succession of words, but as a hierarchy of its immediate constituents. The division is thus made with a view to set off such components as admit, in their turn, a maximum number of further division and this is always done proceeding from the binary principle which means that in each case we set off two IC's.

Thus, for instance, the sentence My younger brother left all his things there will be analysed as follows:

My younger brother left all his things there

My \\ younger brother left all his things \\ there

and so on until we receive the minimum constituents which do not admit further division on the syntactic level

left | all his things || there

My || younger ||| brother left || all |||| his things || there

left ||| all |||| his ||||| things there

The transformational model of the sentence is, in fact, the extension of the linguistic notion of derivation to the syntactic level, which presupposes setting off the so-called basic or "kernel" structures and their transforms, i. e. sentence-structures derived from the basic ones according to the transformational rules.

THE SECONDARY PARTS OF THE SENTENCE

The secondary parts of the sentence are classified according to the syntactic relations between sentence elements. These relations differ in character.

Oppositional relations between the principal and secondary parts of the sentence are quite evident. The former are the core of the communicative unit, the latter develop the core as being a) immediately related to some of the sentence-elements or b) related to the predicative core as a whole.

The closest bond is commonly observed in attributive relationships. Attributive adjuncts expand sentence-elements rather than the sentence itself.

His possessive instinct, subtler, less formal, more elastic since the War, kept all misgivings underground. (Galsworthy)

The second type of non-predicative bond, the completive one, is more loose. It develops the sentence in another way. In this type of bond the secondary parts relate, to the predicative core as a whole.

The same number of the unemployed, winter and summer, in storm or calm , in good times or bad, held this melancholy midnight rendezvous at Fleishmann's bread box. (Dreiser)

The completive bond can expand the sentence indefinitely.

The copulative bond connects syntactically equivalent sentence elements.

With the money he earned he bought novels, dictionaries and maps browsed through the threepenny boxes in the basement of a secondhand bookshop downtown. (Sillitoe)

In actual speech various types of syntactic bond can actualise various types of syntactic meaning. Thus, for instance, both process and qualitative relationship can find their expression in:

(a) the attributive bond an easy task;

playing boys;

(b) the completive bond I found the task;

I found the boys playing;

(c) the predicative bond The task was easy;

The boys were playing.

The Attribute

The qualificative relationship can be actualised by the attributive bond. The paradigm of these linguistic means is rather manifold. We find here:

adjectives: the new house; a valuable thing;

nouns in the Possessive Case: my brother's book;

noun-adjunct groups (N + N): world peace, spring time;

prepositional noun-groups: the daughter of my friend;

pronouns (possessive, demonstrative, indefinite): my joy, such flowers, every morning, a friend of his, little time;

infinitives and infinitival groups: an example to follow, a thing to do;

gerunds and participles: (a) walking distance, swimming suit;

(b) a smiling face, a singing bird;

numerals: two friends, the first task;

words of the category of state: faces alight with happiness;

10) idiomatic phrases: a love of a child, a jewel of a nature, etc.

If an adjective is modified by several adverbs the latter are generally placed as follows: adverbs of degree and qualitative adverbs stand first and next come modal adverbs, adverbs denoting purpose, time and place, e. g.:

usually intentionally very active 3 2 1 A

politically and socially 4

It comes quite natural that the collocability of adverbs with adjectives is conditioned by the semantic peculiarities of both. Some adverbs of degree, for instance, are freely employed with all qualitative adjectives (absolutely, almost, extremely, quite, etc.), others are contextually restricted in their use. Thus, for instance, the adverb seriously will generally modify adjectives denoting physical or mental state, the adverb vaguely (--not clearly expressed) goes patterning with adjectives associated with physical or mental perception.

The Object

The object is a linguistic unit serving to make the verb more complete, more special, or limit its sphere of distribution.

The divergency of relations between verbs and their objects is manifold. The completive bond in many, if not in all, languages covers a wide and varied range of structural meaning. This seems to be a universal linguistic feature and may be traced in language after language. But though English shares this feature with a number of tongues its structural development has led to such distinctive idiosyncratic traits as deserve a good deal of attention.

A verb-phrase has frequently a dual nature of an object and an adverbial modifier. Structures of this sort are potentially ambiguous and are generally distinguished by rather subtle formal indications aided by lexical probability.

The syntactic value of linguistic elements in a position of object is naturally conditioned by the lexical meaning of the verb, its related noun and their correlation. Regrettable mistakes occur if this is overlooked.

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.

The trichotomic division of objects into direct, indirect and prepositional has its own demerits. It is based on different criteria which in many cases naturally leads to the overlap of indirect and prepositional classes.

Object relations cannot be studied without a considerable reference to the lexical meaning of the verb.

Instances are not few when putting an object after the verb changes the lexical meaning of the verb. And there is a system behind such developments in the structure of English different from practice in other languages.

Compare the use of the verbs to run and to fly in the following examples:

to run fast, to run home;

to run a factory, to run the house, to run a car into a garage;

to fly in the air;

to fly passengers, to fly a plane, to fly a flag.

In attempting to identify the linguistic status of different kind of objects in Modern English G. G. Pocheptsov advocates other criteria for their classification based on the relation between the verb and its object in the syntactic structure of the sentence. Due attention is given to the formal indications which, however, are considered secondary in importance to content. The classification is based on the dichotomy of the two basic types:object-object and addressee-object. The former embraces the traditional direct object and the prepositional object as its two sub-types. The addressee-object has two variants different in form: prepositionless and prepositional. The object of result, cognate object, etc., are considered to have no status as object types and are but particular groupings within the boundaries of the two basic types of object outlined above¹. This may be diagrammed as follows:

Types of Object	Object-object	Addressee-object
Sub-types of Object	direct	prepositional
Types of Bond	prepositionless	prepositional	prepositionless	prepositional
Examples:	He knew this.	He knew of this.	He gave me a letter.	He gave a letter to me.

The identification of object relations from the above given angle of view is not devoid of logical foundation and seems practical and useful.

Verb-phrases with Prepositionless Object

To identify the semantic and structural traits of different variants of verb-phrases we shall compare the following:

dig ground, meet our friends, build a house, observe the stars, etc.

walk the streets, sit a horse, smile a sunny smile, bow one's thanks, nod approval, etc.

With all their similarity, the two types of verb-phrases differ essentially in their syntactic content. The former imply that the person or thing is directly affected by the action, i. e. the action is directed to the object which completes the verbal idea and limits it at the same time. The duty of the object in examples (B) is to characterise the action; the phrase therefore is descriptive of something that is felt as characteristic of the action itself.

Phrases of group (A) are fairly common. A limiting object may be expressed by nouns of different classes, concrete and abstract, living beings and inanimate things, names of material, space and time. The range of verbs taking such kind of objects is known to be very wide.

Phrases of group (B) are somewhat limited in their use. The range of verbs taking such descriptive objects is rather small. Many patterns of this kind are idiosyncratic in their character. Some verbs which are generally intransitive acquire a transitive meaning only in such collocation.

Objects of group (A) are functionally identical in their limiting character but are contrasted to each other in the following terms:

the outer character of the action: the object is acted upon without any inner change in the object itself, as in: dig the ground, clean the blackboard, apply the rule, dress the child, take a book, send a letter, etc.;

the inner character of the action: the object is acted upon, which results in some inner changes in the object itself: improving the method, injured the tree, weakened the meaning, intensified the idea, etc.;

the resultative character of the action. This kind of objects presents no difficulty and no particular interest, e. g.: painted a picture, made the dress, wrote a monograph, built a house, etc

The same kind of object is obvious after verbs like beget, create, develop, draw, construct, invent, manufacture, etc.

In terms of transformational analysis, phrases of group (A) are characterised by the following:

1) pronominal transformation -- noun-objects may be replaced by corresponding pronominal forms, e. g.: dug it, dressed it, took it, washed it (the linen), violated it (the rule), etc.

2) transformation through nominalisation:

dig the ground -- digging the ground;

violating the rule -- the violation of the rule;

he approved our choice -- his approval of our choice.

3) adjectivisation:

she washed her linen -- her washed linen; he deserted his friend -- his deserted friend; forgot his promise -- forgetful of his promise.

Verb-phrases of group (B) have some characteristic features of their own.

Compare the following:

He writes a good letter;

He writes a good hand.

He strikes me as capable, orderly, and civil; I don't see what more you want in a clerk. He writes a good hand, and so far I can see he tells the truth. (Galsworthy)

Phrases of group (B) can have overlapping relations of manner and consequence:

Such are phrases with the so-called cognate object ¹, e. g.: to live a life, to fight a fight, to laugh a laugh, to smile a sunny smile, to fight a battle, etc.

The syntactic content of such verb-phrases can be adequately explained by transformational analysis, e. g.:

He has fought the good fight > ...has fought so as to produce the good fight.

He lived the life of an exile >... his manner of living was that of an exile.

Combinations of this kind are found with verbs that are otherwise intransitive (live, smile).

Phrases with the cognate object are stylistic alternatives of corresponding simple verbs: to live a life = to live; to smile a smile = to smile, etc. functioning as an easy means of adding some descriptive trait to the predicate which it would be difficult to add to the verb in some other form. To fight the good fight, for instance, is semantically different from to fight well; he laughed his usual careless laugh is not absolutely synonymous with he laughed carelessly as usual.

Cognate objects commonly have attributive adjuncts attached to them.

Having said that Jolyon was ashamed. His cousin had flushed a dusky yellowish red. What had made him tease the poor brute? (Galsworthy)

He laughed suddenly a ringing free laugh that startled the echoes in the dark woods. (Mitchell)

She frowned at his facetiousness -- a pretty, adorable frown that made him put his arm around her and kiss it away. (London)

Winter snowed its snow, created a masterpiece of arctic mist and rain until a vanguard convoy of warm days turned into Easter, with supplies of sun run surreptitiously through from warmer lands. (Sillitoe)

The chief point of linguistic interest is presented by V + N phrases with intransitive verbs where the relations between verb and noun lead to the formation of special lexical meanings. The use of verbs which are otherwise semantically intransitive in V + N patterns is fairly common. Verbs involved in such syntactic relations undergo considerable semantic changes. Some of them acquire a causative meaning, e. g. to run a horse, to run a business, walk the horses, etc.

Verbs of seeing, such as to look, gaze, stare, glare, which are generally used with a prepositional object, when employed in V + N patterns develop the meaning "to express by looking", as in: She looked her surprise; He said nothing but glanced a question; She stared her discontent.

Similarly: to breathe relief, to sob repentance, to roar applause, to smile appreciation, to bray a laugh and still others.

As we see, patterns of this sort are frequent with verbs which are otherwise intransitive, as in:

"Because..." Brissenden sipped his toddy and smiled appreciation of it. (London)

Further examples are:

She nodded approval.

He bowed his thanks.

She beamed satisfaction.

She laughed her thanks.

He breathed his astonishment.

He could only stare his surprise.

Somewhat related to these formations are such grammatical idioms where some special addition to a secondary word cannot conveniently be expressed by means of a subject: a predicative-word is consequently loosely attached to the sentence as the bearer of the specialisation in the form of modifier, as in: her face was very pale, a greyish pallor.

Not infrequently modifying words are introduced by the preposition with. Consider the following examples:

Not much give and take about Desert -- restless, disharmonic, and a poet! And proud -- with that inner self-depreciation pride which never let up on a man. (Galsworthy)

Similarly:

She was pretty, with the prettiness of twenty.

He was sick with a sickness more than of a body, a sickness of mind.

Adverbial Adjuncts

The classification of adverbial sentence-elements has its own difficulties, because adverbials different in their syntactic content can be identical in terms of the formal syntactic bond.

By "syntactic content" we mean the content of the relationships between words in sentence-structure. These are:

a) process relationship, i. e. the relation between the process and the agent of the process;

object relationship -- the relation between the object and the process or between two objects;

qualification relationship -- the relation between the quality and the object or the process;

adverbial (or circumstantial) relationship.

Syntactic content is naturally understood as abstracted from the pertainance of words to the parts of speech and concrete lexical meaning.

In terms of syntactic content, adverbials may reasonably be subdivied into:

a) qualificative and b) circumstantial. The former are closely akin to adjectives.

Cf. An easy thing to do. He did it easily. A kind answer. He answered kindly.

Circumstantial adverbials are modifiers of place, purpose, time, concession, attending circumstances, etc.

This is not to say however that the above division covers all instances of the functional use of words in the position of adverbial adjuncts. Language is a system of interdependent units in which the value of each unit results only from the presence of the others. There are naturally borderline cases of dual or overlapping relationships. Prepositional phrases are often ambiguous. They are not indifferent to the concrete lexical meaning of words and their ability to combine with one other in certain patterns. Various important relations between types of such context-sensitive phrases can be adequately explained by transformational analysis.

Compare the following for illustration:

She touched the animal with her careful hand (She touched the animal carefully).

She touched the animal with her hand.

We cannot fail to see that object relations in (a) are somewhat weakened. The phrase is suggestive of adverbial meaning signalled by the adjective "careful", which cannot be said about the second example (b).

WORD-ORDER

The position of words and syntactic structures relative to one another is well known to be a most important part of English syntax. On this level of linguistic analysis distinction must naturally be made between two items: the order of words in phrase-structure and the order of words in sentence structure.

Due to the scarcity of morphological devices English has developed a tolerably fixed word-order which in most cases shows without fail what is the subject of the sentence.

But this is not to say that the grammatical rules of the normal word-order are strictly observed in absolutely all cases. The form of expression may depart from the common word-order for certain logical reasons or under the stress of emotion, considerations of style, euphonic reasons, etc. The speaker or writer generally has some special emphasis to put on some part of the sentence (rhetorical order).

The following comparison will show the departure from the normal word-order in expressing subject-predicate relations (S> P P>S);

(a) Came frightful days of snow and frost. (London) Cf. Frightful days of snow and frost came.

(b) Oh! very well. And suddenly she burst into tears of disappointment, shame and overstrain. Followed five minutes of acute misery. (Galsworthy)

Cf. Five minutes of acute misery followed. Further examples are:

He remembered Irene saying to him once: "Never was any one born more loving and lovable than Jon". (Galsworthy)

Then arrived in a group a number of Nicholases, always punctual -- the fashion up Ladbroke Grove way; and close behind them Eustace and his men, gloomy and smelling rather of smoke. (Galsworthy)

Variations in word-order characterising a word or a phrase as to its thematic and rhematic quality have special communicative functions. Examine also the word-order arrangement in the following sentences with the front-position of objects and adverbial adjuncts:

On the hearth stood an enormous bowl, with bottles beside it, glinting in the firelight. (Ch. Snow)

...At last I turned away. On the pavement, walking towards me, was Sheila. (Ch. Snow)

Thus, dreadfully, was revealed to him the lack of imagination in the human being. (Galsworthy)

Sometimes emphatic front-position of sentence-element is found without inversion of subject and predicate. This is the case, for instance, with objects referring to what immediately precedes in the context.

To the little I told him, he was formally sympathetic; but in his heart he thought it all inexplicable and somewhat effeminate. (Ch. Snow)

Of these she read to little Jon, till he was allowed to read to himself; whereupon she whisked back to London and left them with him in a heap. (Galsworthy)

To her new fangled dress, frilly about the hips and tight below the knees, June took a sudden liking -- a charming colour, flax-blue. (Galsworthy)

Her heart he only knew the value of when she said softly: ^uGo on out, and don't ever come in here again." (Sillitoe)

With regard to the relative positions of subject and verbal predicate there are three possibilities which may be denoted respectively:

the "normal" order S> P;

the "inverted" order P > S;

the inverted order with P split up into two parts and S coming between them.

It is interesting to observe that in sentences of the third type (c) the subject often has a lengthy attribute attached to it, which adds to its rhematic quality and semantic prevalence in the whole statement.

“PARCELLING” AND "SEGMENTATION" IN ENGLISH SENTENCE-STRUCTURE

Flexibility in sentence-structure merits consideration in sentence-patterning with the so-called "parcelling" by which we mean placing a syntactically dependent sentence-element out of its usual sentence frame and setting it off by a full stop like an independent unit.

Parcelling is not infrequent in spoken English and literary prose. In such isolated position we may find adverbial adjuncts, objective complements, attributes and epithet adjuncts. The expressive value of such sentence-patterns, marked by special intonation contours in actual speech, makes them most effective.

1. Adverbial adjuncts in isolated position:

Suddenly my mind leapt clear. "I should like to talk about that", I said. "Not tonight. Tomorrow or the next day". (Ch. Snow)

They ran close into wind. Slowly. Fantastically slowly. (Aldridge)

Now, on this course, they were running with the breakwater. Level with it. But out to sea and away from it. And fast. (Aldridge)

"I have been glancing into some of the rooms. Let's go to Coney Island, old sport. In my car. "It's too late". (Fitzgerald)

2. Isolated predicatives:

He was exhausted. Completely finished, and sick with the balt water in him. (Aldridge)

3. Isolated subject-groups in patterns with the introductory it:

It had been the most ironical thing of all. To arrive from Gadvos after releasing those from the Metaxists. To come back here and meet Metaxists from Egypt who want cooperation. (Aldridge)

4. Isolated parts of complex modal predicate:

If you have troubles let me share them. You are so much to me -- my only trouble I can fix your life. Join it with mine. (Dreiser)

5. Isolated attributive adjuncts:

He had reached the centre of Parliament Square, when a figure coming towards him swerved suddenly to its left and made in the direction of Victoria. Tall, with a swing in its walk. (Galsworthy)