Modern English Grammar

Function verbs become thus sequence-signals by referring back to specific full verbs or verb-headed structures in the preceding sentence.

Soames took some deep breaths, savouring it, as one might an old wine. (Galsworthy)

"Was Wilfrid here to-night?"

"Yes-- no. That is "

His hands clutched each other; he saw her eyes, fix on them, and kept them still.

"Fleur, don't".

"I'm not. He came to the window there..." (Galsworthy)

The infinitive particle to and the negator not may function similarly:

She was all vitality. What a fine catch for some young fellow some day, and her father would make him rich, no doubt, or help to. (Dreiser)

"If you send me away now, I shall go."

"That's what I want to."

"Once I shouldn't have. I should have come back and apologised. I shan't do that now, if you get rid of me." "I don't expect you to", I said. (Ch. Snow)

..."You need at least six months doing absolutely nothing, and feeding as well as you can -- you're definitely undernourished -- and without a worry in your head."

"Instead of which," I said, "in a month's time I take the most important examination of my career."

"I should advise you not to." (Ch. Snow)

And here is an example to illustrate the use of the anaphoric word-substitute so:

So Martin thought, and so he spoke when Brissenden urged him to give them hell. (London)

.. .With her cheek to his she said quietly:

"Do you want me to be everything to you before you marry me? If so, I can". (Galsworthy)

With reference to the nominal part of a predicate, so is used with verbs like to be (especially in its non-finite forms), to remain, to seem; it may also occur as a predicative adjunct to an object, and immediately after an adverb.

He had been weak but he will be so no longer.

Drouet's income was insufficient, and likely to remain so.

So is similarly used after verbs like to say, to tell, to think, to hope, to suppose, to believe, etc. In this case it refers to the whole of a preceding sentence.

"The new manager is not as good as we expected".-- "Well, I told you so but you would not believe me".

"Will your sister be coming to-night?" -- "I think so".

"It would be nice if the doctor would let me go out next Sunday.-- Let's hope so".

"Is the last train gone?" -- "Yes, I'm afraid so".

Compare the following examples with it and that:

The child is nine years old, though you'd hardly think it.

He thinks the war will be over before Christmas.-- They all think that.

So occasionally precedes the subject of one of these verbs.

We never got on very well together.-- So she told me.

In conclusion, attention may be called to the use of so after if.

As in the previous construction, so here refers to a preceding sentence.

In the negative its place is taken by not.

He may be innocent, if so, why did he give himself up? If not, why didn't he try to escape?

Similarly how so? why so?

It will be important to observe that syntactic structures with substitution are, in fact, fixed patterns of complete sentences, always anaphoric in character, as distinguished from representation resulting from non-anaphoric omission and ellipsis.

INTENSITY AND EMPHASIS IN ENGLISH SENTENCE-STRUCTURE

Expressive nuances and intensity of meaning can be obtained in any language by linguistic devices of different levels: phonetic, morphological, syntactic and phraseological, by word-building and special intensive words. All these can function as expedients to produce emotive and logical intensity of the utterance. Some of such intensifying forms, established by long use in the language and recognised by their semantic value and purpose, are registered in good dictionaries as intensifiers or intensives. In most cases they have their neutral synonymic alternatives.

Phonetic means are most powerful in expressive connotation. The human voice can always give the necessary prominence to the utterance, indicating such subtle shades of meaning that perhaps no other means can actualise. Modulation features, intonation and stress, pausation, drawling, whispering and other ways of using the voice are known to be most effective in intensifying the utterance logically or emotionally.

A major object in style is to call the attention of the reader in a forcible way to the most important part of the subject -- in other words, to give emphasis to what is emphatic, and to make what is striking and important strike the eye and mind of the reader.

The position of words and syntactic structures relative to one another presents quite a special interest. But intensity and emphasis can also be produced in other ways. The selection of such linguistic devices is a factor of great significance in the act of communication. This part of syntax in any language is a source of constant linguistic interest. Syntactic structures are subtle and delicate in their different shades of meaning, and it is not always easy to find the ones that express precisely what we want to say. It is only a matter of having a good command of language and a fairly wide vocabulary; it is also necessary to think hard and to observe accurately.

There is natural tendency in any language to develop its emotional and affective means of expression. We cannot fail to see that there are not only points of coincidence here but specific features characteristic of any given language with its own patterns of formations and its own types of structural units. Important treatments of the subject have been made by many scholars.

Intensity and emphasis can be expressed, for instance, by functional re-evaluation and transposition of various syntactic structures, by special grammatical idioms -- fixed patterns of usage, by idiomatic sentence-patterns.

Observations on the contextual use of various patterns furnish numerous examples of re-interpretation of syntactic structures by which we mean stylistic transpositions resulting in neutralisation of the primary grammatical meaning of the given linguistic unit. The "asymmetric dualism of the linguistic sign"¹ appears to be natural and is fairly common at different levels of any language.

The linguistic mechanism, prosodic features, in particular, work naturally in many ways to prevent ambiguity in such patterns of grammatical structure.

A major interest is presented, for instance, by "nexus of deprecation" with the implicit expression of negation in sentences without "negative" words, or the use of negative structures with the implication of affirmative emphatic assertion.

Rhetorical questions are not limited by conversational dialogues. They are fairly common in monologues of various genres -- publicist, literary prose, scientific English and oratory where they are not intended to elicit an answer but are inserted for rhetorical effect to draw the attention of the hearer towards the contents of the utterance.

Scholars are not agreed at this point of analysis. Some grammarians hold the view that rhetorical questions imply a disguised assertion², others emphasise that a rhetorical question presupposes a negative answer and is in fact a special form of negation. Rhetorical questions are sometimes referred to as structures implying both assertion and negation.

Appellation to the hearer implied in interrogative sentences, in general, makes the rhetorical question a most effective means to express intensity of feeling in colourful lively speech:

"I never see him doing any work there", continued Harris, "whenever I go in. He sits behind a bit of glass all day, trying to look as if he was doing something. What's the good of a man behind a bit of glass? I have to work for my living. Why can't he work? What use is he there, and what the good of their banks?.. What is the good of that? (Jerome K. Jerome)

Could a man own anything prettier than this dining-table with its deep lints, the starry, soft-patelled roses, the ruby-coloured glass, and quaint silver furnishing; could a man own anything prettier than the woman sitting at it? (Galsworthy)

In patterns with "implied" or non-grammatical negation the connection between the two sentence elements is brushed aside as impossible; the meaning is thus negative which is the same as questions, often in an exaggerated form or not infrequently given to the two sentence elements separately, e. g.:

"Darling, it was very harmless".

"Harmless! Much you know what's harmless and what isn't".

Fleur dropped her arms. (Galsworthy)

"Mr. Copperfield was teaching her. Much he knew of it himself" (Dickens)

By the front door the maid was asking:

"Shall you be back to dinner, sir?"

"Dinner!" muttered Soames, and was gone. (Galsworthy)

Cf. «Вы меня нынче совсем измучили», -- «Замолчи ради бога». (Полина) -- «Как же дожидайся, буду я молчать!» (Н. Островский)

«Да чего ты рассердился так горячо?»... -- «Есть из-за чего сердиться!» (Гоголь)

Він відмовився від своїх слів! Не можу повірити!

The implication of affirmative emphatic assertion will be found in examples like the following:

Bicket swallowed violently again. "It's all very well," he said sullenly; "it asn't appened to you!"

Michael was afflicted at once. No! It hadn't happened to him! And all his doubts of Fleur in the days of Wilfred came hitting him. (Galsworthy)

Cf. "Proud? And how's she earned it! Proud! My Gawd." (Galsworthy)

Oh? Swine that he was, to have thought like that -- of Vic! He turned his back to her and tried to sleep. But once you got a thought like that -- sleep? No. (Galsworthy)

In colloquial English there are numerous standardised types of rhetorical questions expressing a categorial disagreement with the opinion of the collocutor, e. g.:

What business is it of yours? You mind your own affairs.

Doolittle (remostrating). Now, now, look here, Governor. Is this reasonable? Is it fair to take advantage of a man like this? This girl belongs to me. I got her. (Shaw)

Cf. «Ну для чего ты пташку убил? -- начал он, глядя мне прямо в лицо.-- «Как для чего! ... Коростель -- это дичь: его есть можно».-- «Не для того ты убил его, барин: станешь ты его есть!» (Тургенев)

«Что ж они и мазут весь увезли?» -- недоверчиво спросил кривой Чумаков.-- «А ты думал, дед, тебе оставили? Очень ты им нужен, как и весь трудящийся народ» (Шолохов).

French: Moi faire ca?

German: Erf So was sagen!

Intensity of meaning can be produced by such special syntactic patterns as:

a) patterns with so-called "appended statement", e. g.:

He likes a low death-rate and a gravel soil for himself, he does. (Shaw)

You're the sort that makes duty a pleasure, you are. (Shaw)

He used to wolf down a lot in those days, did Dad. (Shaw)

b) pleonastic patterns like the following:

Bicket had a thought. This was poetry -- this was. (Galsworthy)

c) the use of the verb go functioning as an emphatic auxiliary in idiomatic pattern go and V_fin where there is no idea of real motion attached to the verb go.

Present Tense

Non-emphatic Emphatic

Why do you say such things? Why do you go and say such

things? Past Indefinite

He did it. He went and did it.

Present Perfect

He has caught it. He has gone and caught it. Past Perfect

He had caught it. He had gone and caught it.

His grey eyes would brood over the grey water under the grey sky; and in his mind the mark would fall. It fell with a bump on the eleventh of January when the French went and occupied the Ruhr. (Galsworthy)

(Went and occupied = occupied)

"If you're Master Murdstone", said the lady, "why do you go and give another name, first?" (Galsworthy)

(Why do you go and give... = Why do you give...)

"He mustn't catch cold -- the doctor had declared, and he had gone and caught it. (Galsworthy)

(She had gone and caught it -- he had caught it)

Verb-phrases of this type imply disapproval of the action, its irrelevance or unexpectedness with different shades of subjective modal force depending on the context, linguistic or situational.

...His grandmother turned from the fire: "What have you gone and done now, you silly lad?"

"I fell into a bush," he told her. (Sillitoe)

Intensity of meaning may be produced by patterns with the ing-form following the verb go when the latter is also semantically depleted and is used idiomatically to intensify the meaning of the notional verb, e. g.:

He goes frightening people with his stories.

"I shall see you again before long, my boy!" he said. Don't you go paying any attention to what I've been saying about young Bosinney -- I don't believe a word of it!" (Galsworthy)

James was alarmed. "Oh", he said, don't go saying I said it was to come down! I know nothing about it. (Galsworthy)

You'll go burning you fingers -- investing your money in lime, and things you know nothing about. (Galsworthy)

Don't go putting on any airs with me. (Mitchell)

Compare the use of the Russian verb взять functioning as an emphatic auxiliary in idiomatic patterns with particles of emphatic precision: возьми и расскажи (возьми да расскажи); взял и рассказал (взял да рассказал); возьмет и расскажет (возьмет да расскажет), etc.

Не знаю, чем я заслужил доверенность моего нового приятеля,-- только он, ни с того, ни с сего, как говорится, взял да и рассказал мне довольно замечательный случай... (Тургенев)

Most forceful and expressive are idiomatic patterns where the determining and the determined elements of the denotation mutually exchange their respective parts, e. g.: a jewel of a nature, a devil of a journey, etc.

In common use the bearer of a quality is regularly denoted by the basic noun, while the quality attributed to this bearer is expressed by an element developing that basic noun. In patterns like a jewel of a picture the quality is expressed by the basic noun, while its bearer is denoted by the of -phrase developing that noun. This construction is not known in Old English. It has come into the language from French.

Further examples are: a slip of a boy, a slip of a girl, a love of a child, a peach of a girl, a devil of a fellow, a jewel of a cup, a doll of a baby, a brute of horse, a screw of a horse, the deuce of a noise, a deuce of a journey, a devil of a toothache, a devil of a hurry, her pet of a baby, a beast of a cold, the ghost of a voice, the ghost of a smile, a rascal of a landlord, etc. Such grammatical idioms are generally used to express either delight or admiration, scorn, irony or anger.

The idiomatic character of these forcible and expressive phrases offers certain difficulties in translation. The absence of analogous formations in a recipient language suggests the choice of other means to render a given idea in each case, such as, for instance, appositive use of nouns, epithet adjuncts or descriptive translation. Compare the following in Russian and Ukrainian:

a)	giant of a man	(человек-великан [людина-велетень
b)	a hell of a noise \	адский шум страшенний шум
c)	a love of a child	прелестное дитя чудова дитина
d)	a devil of a fellow	отчаянный малый шалений хлопець
e)	the deuce of a price	бешеные деньги шалені гроші
f)	a devil of a hurry	ужасная спешка шалений поспіх
g)	a jewel of a nature	редкостная натура рідкісна натура
h)	a doll of a girl	Не девочка, а кукла Не дівчина, а лялька Лялька, не дівчина
i)	a jewel of a girl	Не девочка, а золото Золото, не дівчина

Consider also the following:

"Perhaps you know that lady", Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state under a white-plum tree. (F. Fitzgerald)

What a jolly little duck of a house! (Galsworthy)

His own life as yet such a baby of a thing, hopelessly ignorant and innocent. (Galsworthy)

IDIOMATIC SENTENCES

Syntactic idiomaticity is a universal feature of language development observed in most if not in all languages.

By idiomatic sentences we mean sentences with a purely idiomatic grammatical arrangement. The meaning of such sentences cannot be readily analysed into the several distinct components which would be expressed by the words making up an ordinary sentence.

Syntactic idioms merit special linguistic consideration as relevant to grammatical aspects of style and synonymy in grammar.

Accurate studies of syntactic idioms have not yet been made. Many questions about their grammatical status go unanswered and, indeed, unasked. Important treatments of the subject in the Russian language have been made by N. U. S h v e d о v a and D. H. Shmelyov.

Interesting observations in this part of German syntax have been made by O. I. Moskalskaya. Sentence-patterns with a purely idiomatic grammatical arrangement in present-day English have naturally their own traits of formation and conventional practices. But sometimes we find here close parallels to certain fixed types of syntactic idiomaticity observed in other languages which should not escape the notice of the student.

Syntactic idioms transcend the ordinary syntactic constructions and are, in fact, shaped and arranged according to special patterns. The words that make them up are variable, but their types seem to be fixed.

Syntactic idiomaticity is far too big a subject to be treated adequately in our short course, where reasons of space make it possible to mention only its essential features.

Syntactic idioms have rather a high frequency value in spoken and written English. They are stylistically marked units with subjective modal force and as such add much to the emotive value of the utterance. Most of them function as expedients to produce intensity or emphasis of meaning in expressive language. In idiomatic sentences we generally find special formative elements of their typification. In these terms, at least to a workable degree, we shall distinguish the following patterns:

1. Fixed stereotyped idiomatic sentences implying confirmation or negation. The necessary meaning is always signalled by the consituation, e. g.:

It was a swell party, and, how!

Cf. Еще бы!

Similarly in Ukrainian: Ще б пак! Аякже! In German: Und wie! Und ob!

Und was fur einer! Well, I never!

Well, to be sure! Well, of all things! ' Well, of all things," replied her friend, "Wonders never cease, do they Aileen?" (Dreiser) Cf. Вот так так! Вот тебе на! Ukrainian: От так раз!

Related to these are expressive interjectional patterns implying confirmation or negation, such as:

Dear me! Oh, dear! By heaven!

2. Idiomatic sentence-patterns with implicit negation, e. g.:

N(p) N(p) He a coward!

N(p) and N(p) She and a failure!

N(p) and V_inf An actor and refuse to help us!

N(p) and A Michael and joyless!

Np and pN She and in trouble!

Np A He arrogant and cruel!

NpV_inf Me dance!

3. Idiomatic pseudo-subclauses:

a) patterns with the typifying not that, e. g.:

Soames shook his head. "Improve his health -- very likely. Has he ever been in prison"? "Not that I know of". (Galsworthy)

(Not that I know of -- наскільки мені відомо).

"Your father in town?" "I believe so, sir". "Good!" Not that he felt relief. (Galsworthy)

(Not that he felt relief -- він не відчув особливого полегшення).

But there, thinking's no good to anyone -- is it madam? Thinking won't help. Not that I do it often. (Mansfield)

(Not that I do it often -- я роблю це не часто).

Not that he ever mentioned it -- one did not use such a word! (Galsworthy)

(Not that he ever mentioned it -- він ніколи не висловлював цього вголос,-- про це не говорять).

Cf. German: Nicht dass er wusste!

French: C'est ne pas qu'il soit content.

Idiomatic sentence-patterns of the given type seen to have their transformational origin in idiomatic structures with it is... that, it was... that, to which they are, no doubt, related as stylistic variants

b) exclamatory pseudo-subclauses, e. g.:

That he should have made such a mistake!

Cf. И надо же было ему сделать такую ошибку!

Ukrainian: И треба ж йому було зробити таку помилку!

Cf. German: Dass ihm das passieren musste!

French: Fallait-il qu'il soit venu!

c) patterns with pseudo-subclauses of condition intensifying the meaning of some quality as expressed in a given message, e. g.:

Freddie gashed: "You're a lucky devil, if ever I met' one. Such a nice thing". He grinned enviously. (Cronin)

I know your motives are always above reproach. However Johnnie Gallegher is a cold little bully, if ever I saw one. (Mitchell)

Cf. If ever there was dressiness, it was here. It was personification of the old term spick and span. (Dreiser)

If ever the girl looked like a leopardess, it was now; her strange, deep set eyes kept sliding from her 'cub' to him who threatened to deprive her of it. (Galsworthy)

Patterns of this type are syntactic idioms obviously distinct from units of the formula character like How do you do?; the latter is for all practical purposes one unchanged and unchangeable formula the meaning of which is really independent of that of the separate words into which it may be analysed. But patterns like If ever I met one are of a totally different order. The type is fixed but alterations can be made here, some words are variable, e. g.: if ever there was one; if ever there can be one; if ever there could be one, etc.

Similarly: Sit still, all you can. (All you can > as still as you can).

I hurried all I could, mum, soon as I seen that cloud, the girl puffed with the air of one who is so seriously thankful to have escaped a great disaster. (Bennett)

It was hard to think about, but only made her more than ever determined to cling to him, whatever happened, and to help all she could. (Dreiser)

d) stereotyped interjectional phrase: there is a good fellow (boy, etc.). Cf. -- Вот это хорошо, за это спасибо.

-- От добре, за це дякую.

Intensification of the grammatical meaning is often expressed by such idiomatic patterns where emphasis is produced by the use of the so-called "emphatic would", e. g.:

There it goes. That would be. That would happen to me. I haven't got enough trouble. Here for the evening at the foul party where I don't know a soul. And now my garter has to go and break. (Parker)

Eh, I'd right miss you if you vent, I would and all.

He would come -- just when I wanted to go out! {-How annoying that he has come!)

You would and you wouldn't can be used to express indignation in situations like the following:

I'm afraid I don't know when the train leaves.

Oh, you wouldn't (-- You never know anything!)

The relevance of context to the significance of such units must never be overlooked. Like in all other cases of syntactic ambivalence, the meaning of the sentence is made clear by contextual indicators.

Variants in their use producing subtle shades of subjective modal meaning and emotional value present rather a complicated subject which linguists have by no means fully worked out. The expressive elements cannot be studied outside of their relation to the distinctive objective elements of language which are emotionally neutral. And this leads us to synonymy in grammar which is the principal concern in discussing the stylistic aspects of syntax.

CONSTRUCTIONAL HOMONYMITY

The theory of sentence-structure must do more than only describe the well-formed sentences of a natural language. There are many other facts about the sentences of a language that must be explained by a linguistic theory.

Some sentences are semantically parallel to other sentences of a different structure. Some sentences are related in a definite way to certain sentences. Some sentences are ambiguous and so on.

Grammar must provide an explicit basis for explaining the native speaker's understanding of the relationships between the sentences. It must also show the difference between overtly parallel sentences, the sentences which have the same structure at an appropriate level of abstraction.

Sentences must always be judged in their contexts.

Various important relations between sentences and types of constructions can be adequately explained by transformational analysis.

Ambiguity is an important feature of a natural language.

There are naturally different kinds of ambiguity. The sentence "The table was here" is ambiguous because table has several lexical meanings, e. g. "a table of contents", "mathematical table."

Similarly, the sentence "The train was long" is ambiguous because of the lexical meaning of the noun train: "that which runs on the railroad", and "that which is attached to a bridal gown". This kind of ambiguity is lexical, not grammatical.

The sentence Mary told her sister that she had acted foolishly is an example of grammatical ambiguity. The reference of the pronoun is not clear. We do not know whether she refers to Mary or her sister. Similarly, the sentence The boy looked fast. We don't know whether fast is an adjective (speedy) or an adverb (speedily). The phrase the men with the boys who were laughing is a grammatical ambiguity of a different sort; we can identify the word classes, but we do not know what goes with what -- i. e., what the immediate constituents are.

Further examples are given below.

Consider the phrase (1) which can be understood ambiguously with the hunters as the subject, analogously to (2), or as the object, analogously to (3):

the shooting of the hunters;

the singing of birds;

the raising of the cattle.

On the level of phrase structure there is no good to explain this ambiguity: all of these patterns are represented as the V_ing + of-phrase.

In transformational terms, however, there is a clear and automatic explanation: the shooting of the hunters has two distinct transformational origins: the hunters shoot and they shoot the hunters, which are both kernel sentences. The ambiguity of the grammatical relation results from the fact that the relation of shoot to hunters differs in the two underlying sentences. Lexical improbability excludes the possibility of "they sing birds" or "cattle raise", which are not grammatical kernel sentences.

Covert (deep structure) relations do not manifest themselves in the surface structure. Compare the following:

She made him a good wife.

She made him a good husband.

The surface structures of the two sentences (a) and (b) are identical but their syntactic meanings differ essentially. Through transformation the covert syntactic relations are made explicit: