Modern English Grammar

6. Prepositional and prepositionless objects in isolated position: Brian said to his cousin: "I'm signing on as well in a way, only for

life. I'm getting married". Both stopped walking. Bert took his arm and stared: "You're not".

"Гam. To Pauline. Don't you think we've been courting long enough?" (Sillitoe)

They have snakes in England; jungle and wild animals and mountains. Cities and swamps and big rivers. You look as if you don't believe me. (Sillitoe)

She was interrupted at that point. By me. (Salinger). - In such syntactic arrangements the hierarchy of the spoken chain breaks into segments.

The final intonation of the segments seems to convert them into independent syntactic units. The syntagmatic subordination of the separated element comes to be neutralised by its intonation independence.

And here are a few typical examples of sub-clauses placed for emphasis out of their usual sentence frame and set of by a full stop like independent units:

"I could be content", went on Hurstwood, "if I had you to love me. If I had you to go; for a companion". (Salinger)

I thought of the future, and spoke of the past. Because Holly wanted to know about my childhood. (Capote)

It sounds like it. As though tigers were loose in Holly's apartment. (Capote)

Sentence disintegration of this type is not specifically English and will be found in other languages.

A few typical examples from French are:

Il commenca a attendre. La nomination qui allait arriver, pour une ville inconnue. Les ressources de la province. La vie tranquille et l'hotel. (Conchon)

Elle a ete deportee. Avec sa mere. (Langfus)

Il continue ici a vivre comme un lion. Il se but, Pour les autres. (Laffitte)

Violette riait. Atrocement faut. (Conchon) ¹

Cf: Хотелось яркого света, толпы, шума улиц. Услышать изысканную речь. (Сейфулина)

Какие стволы у осин! Цвета кошачьих глаз. (Ю. Казаков)²

Выходит великий гонщик. Без шапки. И еще какие-то люди с ним. Тоже рыжие. (Олеша)

Нет, ему нужен был именно этот -- чужой. Мечтанный. Невозможный. (Цветаева)

Closely related to "parcelling" is "segmentation".

Parcelling and segmentation are both intended to give emphatic prominence to the separated sentence-elements and as such have much in common. But the two syntactic devices are not absolutely identical.

Parcelling can split a sentence into two or more parts, whereas segmentation is, in fact, a twofold designation, a special kind of reduplication where the sentence is split into two interdependent sentence-elements related as "the theme" and "the rheme" respectively, the former being set off in a position of an independent unit.

Segmentation is also one of the universal features of syntactic arrangement. Structures of this kind are not specifically English and are known to be fairly common in other languages. A few typical examples for illustration:

And those geese -- they don't seem, to mind your counting their features, do they? (Galsworthy)

"This is fantastic", murmured Jolyon. Well, the fellow couldn't force his wife to live with him. Those days were past away! And he looked round at Soames with the thought: "Is he real, this man?" (Galsworthy)

And what about twilight sleep? Why hadn't he been there? He might have -- nature. Damn it! Nature -- as if it couldn't leave even her alone! (Galsworthy)

There are important treatments of the subject in Ch. Bally's Linguistique generale et Linguistique francaise, where segmented sentences are referred to as consisting of two parts: "theme" and "propos". The "theme" is generally represented in "propos" by pronouns. If the "theme" (noun) precedes the "propos" (pronoun), the structure is called a reprise, if the "propos" (pronoun) precedes the "theme", the structure is referred to as anticipation. Segmented sentences have always a middle pause and special intonation.

Segmented structures make the long established order of words in French less rigid, the lexical unit functioning in a sentence becoming ever more independent. This new trend in the development of French syntax is gaining attention of many scholars as one of the most striking features of its progressive development.

The subject has been discussed in A. A. Andrievskaya's work-paper «Характерные черты современного французского синтаксиса»¹, where we find the following tabulated survey:

1) the necessary repetition of the direct object expressed by a pronoun (the only case of the pre-position of the direct object in traditional word- order in French), e. g.:

Je la reprendrai, ma place. Je la bus, ma bouteille.

2) the necessary repetition of any object placed at the head of the sentence, e. g.:

Ces paroles, elle les prononca d'un ton tranquille.

3) the necessary repetition of the object expressed by a whole clause ("Proposition conjonctionnelle"), e. g.:

Que la position fut entierement changee, je ne le pensais pas.

4) the repetition of the subject, with adverbs at the head of the sentence, e. g.:

Ainsi la vie sociale les reprenait-elle.

5) the necessary repetition of the noun-subject in the inverted structure of a question, e. g.:

Mon frere, est-il venu?

PROBLEMS OF THE ACTUAL DIVISION OF THE SENTENCE

(Functional Sentence Perspective)

Syntactic description may begin with "discourse" analysis as its starting point.

In these terms, syntax is described as "textlinguistics" concerned primarily with the grammatical organisation and semantic aspects of supra-phrasal unities.

A supra-phrasal unity usually functioning as a communicative whole consists of a number of semantically related sentences. In writing it corresponds to "paragraph", in spoken language this semantic unity is signalled by pausation.

A "paragraph" is a traditional term used in manuscripts and printing to indicate a distinct subdivision of a discourse, chapter, or writing. It is marked off by indentation at the beginning and a break in the line at the end.

As a logical category the paragraph is characterised by coherence and relative unity of the ideas expressed, as a linguistic category it is a communicative unit marked off by such formal linguistic means as intonation and pauses of various lengths.

A supra-phrasal unit is analysed into sentences and phrases as interdependent units, the value of which results from the simultaneous presence of the others.

Paragraphs in pictorial and emotive prose break up the narrative not only to facilitate understanding but also for emphasis.

Take the following for illustration:

He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees. The mountainside sloped gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled road winding through the pass. There was a stream alongside the road and far down the pass he saw a mill beside the stream and the falling water of the dam, white in the summer sunlight. (Hemingway)

Robert Jordan stood up to follow him, then reconsidered and, lifting the canvas off the two packs, picked them up, one in each hand, and started with them, just able to carry them, for the mouth of the cave. He laid one pack down and lifted the blanket aside, then with his head stooped and with a pack in each hand, carrying by the leather shoulder straps, he went into the cave. (Hemingway)

It was hot that night. Both she and her mother had put on thin, pale, low frocks. The dinner flowers were pale. Fleur was struck with the pale look of everything; her father's face, her mother's shoulders; the pale panelled walls, the pale grey velvety carpet, the lamp-shade, even the soup was pale. There was not one spot of colour in the room, not even wine in the pale glasses, for no one drank it. What was not pale was black -- her father's clothes, the butler's clothes, her retriever stretched out exhausted in the window, the curtains black with a cream pattern. A moth came in, and that was pale. And silent was that half-mourning dinner in the heat. (Galsworthy)

Discourse analysis then carries our attention to the actual division of the sentences making up a supra-phrasal unity, i.e. their communicative function in a given situation, in other words, the "functional sentence perspective", which is, in fact, the main category on this level of linguistic analysis.

By actual division we mean dividing a sentence into two sections, one of which contains that which is the starting point of the message -- "the theme", and the other -- the new information for which the sentence has been spoken or written -- "the rheme".

The two terms are Greek in origin: "theme" comes from the Greek root the- "to set", "to establish" and means "that which is set or established". The term "rheme" is derived from the root rhe- "to say" or "tell" and means "that which is said or told about".

There have been several pairs of terms proposed for this purpose, such as "psychological subject" and "psychological predicate"¹, "lexical subject" and "lexical predicate", "semantic subject" and "semantic predicate". The terms "psychological subject" and "psychological predicate", introduced by the German scholar H. Paul, include a notion of individual psychology, which is beyond the sphere of linguistics itself. Other terms seem to be inadequate as incompatible with our general approach to analysing language phenomena.

Variation in actualising a word or a phrase in a sentence is organically combined with changes in the order of words.

The grammatical arrangement of words in such patterns may well illustrate the fact that the formal and the logical subject of the utterance are two independent elements.

The hierarchy of the components of the utterance is generally made explicit by their syntagmatic relations in the grammatical organisation of the sentence.

We naturally cannot say that every sentence must necessarily consist of two such sections. Some sentences, one-member sentences, in particular, cannot be divided up in this way, and things are not clear with some other types.

However, most sentences do consist of these two sections and the relation between the syntactic structure of the sentence and its division into those two sections merit consideration.

In most Indo-European languages the logical structure of the thought expressed by a sentence is indicated by word-order but the functional value of the order of words is naturally not always the same in languages of different types, where we always find their own idiosyncratic traits and conventional practices of different character.

In a language with a highly developed morphological system and free word order arrangement the order of words is widely used as a means to make the functional sentence perspective explicit.

In languages like English or French, for instance, the grammatical function of the fixed word-order does not always permit the rearrangement of sentence-elements.

Recourse is often made to other linguistic devices doing this duty, e. g.: specific syntactic patterns, articles, particles and adverbs of emphatic precision (even, only, merely, solely, too, just, notably, particularly, especially, positively, etc.), prosodic (suprasegmental) means, such as variation in pitch, emphatic stress, pausation, etc.

The classifying indefinite article is very often used to introduce something that makes part of the new information. Examples are numerous.

Examine the following for illustration:

1. (а) Девушка выглянула из окна.

Т R

(b) Из окна выглянула девушка. Т R

(a) The girl looked out of the window.

T R

(b) A girl looked out of the window.

R T

2. Лесничество было недалеко от деревни.

T R

Недалеко от деревни было лесничество. T R

(a) The forestry was near the village.

T R

(b) There was a forestry near the village.

R T

The functional sentence perspective (FSP) in Russian is signalled by the word-order arrangement: the words девушка and лесничество are the theme when they stand at the beginning of the sentence and the rheme when they are in the end-position. In English this difference is made clear by the use of the articles in (1) and the structure with "there is" in (2).

Further examples are:

When she left Ernest's a huge basket of groceries rested at the foot of the pram, and the small fortune of a pound note lay in her coat pocket. (Sillitoe)

Down the long avenue of his man-about-town experience, bursting, as it were, through a smirch of doubtful amours, there stalked to him a memory of his youth. (Galsworthy)

In answer to the ring, appeared a page boy with a silver soup tureen. (Galsworthy)

Compare also the "theme -- rheme" arrangement in the following sentences:

He could show you this letter yesterday. Only he could show you this letter yesterday. He could only show you this letter yesterday. He could show you this letter only yesterday. He could show this letter only to you yesterday.

Similar in function is the use of particles and adverbs of emphatic precision in other languages:

Russian: только, именно, исключительно, etc.

Ukrainian: тільки, лише, саме, власне, etc.

French -- seulement, uniquement, notamment, juste, etc.

German: пиr, gerade and others.

The role of the order of words used to signal the T--R arrangement is most evident in examples like the following:

And fast into this perilous gulf of night walked Bosinney, and fast after him walked George. (Galsworthy)

Cf. И. Боснии шел быстро прямо в волны ночи, грозившей бедой, и так же быстро шел за ним Джордж.

In the centre of the room, under the chandelier, as became a host, stood the head of the family, old Jolyon himself. (Galsworthy)

Cf. Посередині кімнати, під люстрою, як і лічить хазяїну, стояв глава сім'ї, сам старий Джоліон.

The actual division of the sentence stands in vivid and clear relief in syntactic structures with double inversion by which we mean not only putting the subject before the predicate but separating the verbal predicate. A few typical examples are given below, others will readily occur to the student.

He stooped over the drawer where she kept her jewels; it was not locked, and came open as he pulled; the jewel box had the key in it. This surprised him until he remembered that it was sure to be empty. He opened it.

It was not empty. Divided in the little green velvet compartment, were all the things he had given her, even her watch, and stuck into the recess that contained the watch was a three-cornered note addressed "Soames Forsyte", in Irene's handwriting. (Galsworthy)

The idea about the jewel box is given in the previous sentence; the adverbial adjunct and the predicate "Divided in the little green velvet compartment were" are the starting point of the statement (the theme) and the new information is carried by the subject of the sentence "all the things he had given her, even her watch" -- the rheme.

Similarly: "stuck into the recess that contained the watch was "is the theme, and the new information is carried by the subject "a three-cornered note addressed "Soames Forsyte", in Irene's handwriting"-- the rheme.

It is interesting to observe that in sentence patterns of the given type the subject often has a lengthy attribute attached to it, which adds to its rhematic quality and semantic prevalence in the whole statement.

In different speech events the components of the functional sentence perspective may correspond to different sentence-elements. In each case variation in the T--R arrangement as motivated by the consituation will be made clear by variation in prosody.

(a) John is going to Spain next week.

T R

> an answer to the question: "When is John going to Spain?"

(b) John is going to Spain next week.

T R T

> an answer to the question: "Where is John going next week?"

(c) John is going to Spain next week.

R ^: T

> an answer to the question: "Who is going to Spain next week?"

(d) John is going to Spain next week.

> an answer to the question: "What is John going to do?"

Syntactic means to express the rhematic quality of the subject include also structures of predication with the passive verb-forms and converted subject introduced by the preposition by.

Fixed phrases of emphatic precision it is... (it was) also can, by situation, lay emphasis on any part of the sentence and intensify its rhematic quality.

Sentences that are introduced by it is (it was...) have special traits of their patterning and are logically interesting. We may reasonably say that they homonymically combine a grammatical and a stylistic meaning always signalled by the speech context or situation.

The use of such structures is always a logical result of the previous linguistic situations, and it is but natural that only the syntactical context can define their functional and stylistic value, with all the subtle shades of subjective modal force potentially implicit in them.

Variation in actualising a word or a phrase in a sentence is organically combined with changes in the order of words. The two devices in such structures appear inextricably involved and are inseparable.

The grammatical arrangement of words in these patterns may well illustrate the fact that the formal and the logical subject in a sentence are two independent elements.

The it-inversion is useful in all types of prose as filling the position of the sentence opener with a structural word that enables postponement of the theme.

The foremost notion in the speaker's thoughts, i. e. the logical subject of the utterance is the element introduced by it is... (it was ...).

When we say It is the teacher that decides or It was the student I was looking for, we mean: the teacher is the deciding person and the student was the young man I was looking for. The relative clause thus does not restrict the teacher or the student but obviously belongs to it. It is coffee I like best of all may be easily transformed into Coffee is what I like best of all. This seems to explain why in such sentences we can have a that-clause or a contact-clause after a word which is in itself so definite that it cannot be further restricted:

It is he that must decide.

It was our victory that saved the whole world from fascist slavery.

We cannot fail to see this logical connection in some proverbial sentences, which, analysed differently, will give no sense:

It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest.

It is not the gay coat that makes the gentleman.

It is the early bird that catches the worm.

The linguistic essence of structures with it is, it was has been variously treated by grammarians. Patterns of this sort are sometimes referred to as special emphatic forms of a simple sentence (H. Poutsma, O. Jespersen), complex sentences with emphatic attributive clauses (E. Kruisinga), complex sentences with subordinate subject clauses (G. Curme)¹.

Any part of the sentence can thus be made prominent and intensified in its emphatic quality. Examples follow:

a) t h e s u b j e с t of the sentence:

It was not she who was after them, but they after her. (Galsworthy) The problem in the background of her consciousness was how to help him,

and she turned the conversation in that direction, but it was Martin who

came to the point first. (London)

b) the object of the sentence:

He it was whom they cheered. (Bates)

Cf . They cheered him.

Further examples are:

It is not only companionship he will miss, but also his best friends.

It is not this picture I dislike.

c) the prepositional object:

It was not the results of their experiments that we disapproved of, but some diagrams (the results of their experiment -- the rheme of the sentence).

It was not to George Forsyte that the mind must turn for light on the events of that fog-engulfed afternoon. (Galsworthy)

... but it was his daughter that Soames wanted to gaze from behind Winifred's shoulder. (Galsworthy)

d)the attributive adjunct: It's an ill wind that blows nobody good (proverb).

e) a d verb і a 1 s of time:

It was at this time that he wrote letters of enquiry to the general... (London)

It was then that she saw with whom she had to deal, the lady was undoubtedly Mrs. Soames, the young man Mr. Bosinney. (Galsworthy)

It was not until they found themselves a second time before the Eve, that he said: "I don't know why you asked me to come, Fleur. It's playing the goat for no earthly reason. (Galsworthy) f) adverbials of manner:

It was thus that Frank Algernon Cowperwood's Chicago financial career was definitely launched. (Dreiser)

Was it that with the eyes of faith, he saw Bosinney looking down from that high window in Sloane Street, straining his eyes for yet another glimpse of Irene's vanished figure ... (Galsworthy)

It was thus simply, that she recorded a scene which had really made a deep and complicated impression on her. (Galsworthy)

With reference to persons, sentence-patterns with the pronoun he or she are also common.

He would indeed be a clever man who could decipher this old manuscript.

He is a good friend who speaks well of us behind our backs (proverb).

The following comparison with Russian will not be out of place, in passing.

Я тот, которому внимала

Ты в полунощной тишине,

Чья мысль душе твоей шептала,

Чью грусть ты смутно отгадала,

Чей образ видела во сне.

Я тот, чей взор надежду губит,

Я тот, кого никто не любит... (Лермонтов)

It is also interesting at this point to compare the use of Russian and Ukrainian particles это, то, це, in patterns like the following:

О чем это вы задумались? What is it you are thinking about?

З ким то він про це розмовляв? Who was it that he has spoken about it to?

Що це ви тут обмірковуєте?? What is it you are discussing here?

Further examples are:

Спочатку йому здалося, що це якась іграшка заплуталася в такелажі.

Это мыши кота хоронят.

Cf. It is the mice that are hurrying the cat.

It was for our dear sake that he did it. = Це тільки для нас він це зробив.

It was of his kindness that I was thinking. = Це саме про його доброту я думала.

«На границе семантики и синтаксиса находится употребление так называемого стилистического (индивидуализирующего) этот..., тот... Местоимение в этом случае сообщает не указательное значение, а значение какой-то эмоционально подчеркнутой известности предмета, с названием которого согласуется:

Люблю воинственную живость потешных марсовых полей... Лоскутья сих знамен победных. Сияние шапок этих медных, Насквозь простреленных в бою!» (Пушкин)

Итак эти страшные письма, эти пламенные требования, это дерзкое упорное преследование,-- все это было не любовь. (Пушкин) ¹

Note. Instances are not few when this kind of emphasis is rendered in Russian and Ukrainian by using such intensifying adverbs as: именно, саме..

As a matter of fact structures with it is (it was) combine two functions: expressing syntactic relations of subordination and laying logical emphasis on what is prominent in the speaker's mind by placing the words expressing the given idea in an unusual position.

Similar developments will be found in French. Structures with с'est, c'etait ...qui, que are also known to combine their grammatical value with similar stylistic traits. Patterns of this kind in French are fairly common, e. g.:

C'est le premier pas qui coute.

Cf. German:

Peter war es der mir alles erzahlt hat.

It is to be noted that patterns of this kind are often a logical consequence of a lengthy narration developing in certain sequence. The stylistic aspect of the structure is defined by the context which is always explicit enough to make the meaning clear.

Euphemia Forsyte, who happened to be in the room -- she had come round to borrow the Rev. Mr. Scoles' last novel "Passion and Paregoric", which was having such a vogue -- chimed in.

"I saw Irene yesterday at the Stores;" she said" and Mr. Bosinney were having a nice little chat in the Groceries."

It was thus, simply, that she recorded a scene which had really made a deep and complicated impression on her. (Galsworthy)

One nice old general, going towards Cigars, was obliged to step quite out of the way, and chancing to look up and see Mrs. Soames' face, he actually took off his hat, the old fool! So like a man!

But it was Mrs. Soames' eyes that worried Euphemia. "She never once looked at Mr. Bosinney until he moved on, and then she looked after him. And, Oh, that look! (Galsworthy)

As B. Ilyish very rightly points out, there are some other points to be made concerning the thematic and rhematic analysis.

The theme need not necessarily be something known in advance. In many sentences it is, in fact, something already familiar, as in some of our examples, especially with the definite article. However, that need not always be the case. There are sentences in which the theme, too, is something mentioned for the first time and yet it is not the centre of the predication. It is something about which a statement is to be made. The theme is here the starting point of the sentence, not its conclusion. This will be found to be the case, for example, in the following sentence: Jennie leaned forward and touched him on the knee. (Wilson) which is the opening sentence of a short story. Nothing in this sentence can be already familiar, as nothing has preceded and the reader does not know either who Jennie is or who ,,he" is. What are we, then to say about the theme and the rheme in this sentence? Apparently, there are two ways of dealing with this question. Either we will say that Jennie represents the theme and the rest of the sentence, leaned forward and touched him on the knee, its rheme.