Курсовая работа: Complex composite sentence

Two criteria are most often used in classifying the subordinate clauses of complex sentences: meaning and combinability. When he came is a clause of time according to the meaning imparted by when.

E.g. Wheti he came, it was already late.

But in the sentence I know when he came the same clause is considered objective owing to its subordination to the objective verb know .

There are two ways of using the criterion of combinability. Either subordinate clauses are classified in accordance with their relation to the word of the principal clause «they are attached to, or they are likened to some part of speech •with similar combinability… In the sentences When he came is ' of no importance, I remember when he came the combinability of the subordinate clause resembles that of a noun.

Cf. The fact is of no importance, I remember the fact.

Therefore the clause When he came is considered a noun-clause. If classified in accordance with its relation to the predicate verb, the first clause would be called a subject clause and the second an object clause.

Similarly in This is the man who wishes to see you the subordinate clause may be regarded as an adjective clause in accordance with its own combinability, or as an attributive clause, since its head-word is a noun.

Each of the criteria described has its advantages and disadvantages. But in syntax, it seems, the correlation with the parts of the sentence is preferable to the correlation v with the parts of speech. We shall therefore classify the subordinate clauses into groups parallel to the parts of the simple sentence. Accordingly we snail distinguish subject clauses, complement clauses (predicative, objective, and adverbial), attributive clauses, extension clauses and parenthetical clauses.

Subordinate clauses are connected with the principal clause by conjunctions, conjunctive and relative pro-nouns or asyndetically.

E.g. I have been thinking of Cambridge all through dinner, after (a conjunction) Martin had mentioned a friend of mine who (a relative pronoun) had been killed that spring. (Snow).

He seemed to be asking what (a conjunctive pronoun) was the matter with me. (lb.).

Mauntenay asked me if (a conjunction) / was satisfied with the way (asyndetic subordination) I have spent my life, (lb.).

In connection with the structure of the complex sentence and the means of subordination in it, it is necessary to dwell on the so-called 'sequence of tenses' which is often treated as a formal feature of the complex sentence, a device of subordination. The rule of the sequence of tenses is usually defined as follows: If the predicate verb of the principal clause is in the present or the future tense, the predicate verb of the subordinate clause may be used in any tense required by the sense. If the predicate verb of the principal clause is in the past tense, the verb of the subordinate clause must be used in the past tense too.

The regularity is supposed to be mostly or exclusively characteristic of object subordinate clauses.

From the point of view of Morphology, the so-called sequence of tenses is a morphological problem, not a syntactical one, inasmuch as the past tense forms in the subordinate clauses are used in accordance with the grammatical meanings they express. The following Russian example will help to see it.,

Ятебевсерасскажу, когдаприеду.

Here the predicate verbs in the principal and in the subordinate clause are both representatives of future tense grammemes. In the corresponding English sentence there would be a future tense verb only in the principal clause. I shall tell you everything when I come .

Now from the point of view of an Englishman the future tense in the Russian subordinate clause might be regarded as depending on the future tense of the principal clause, as a means of subordination, and a certain rule of the sequence of the future tenses in Russian might be formulated.

There is no need, however, to look for any syntactical explanation of the use of the future tense verb in the Russian subordinate clause. It is used there in accordance with its meaning since it denotes an action taking, place after the moment of speech.

What does need accounting for is the 'future tense' meaning of the present tense grammeme come in the English subordinate clause. Here we cannot do without 'syntax. We must state that in certain syntactical surroundings a present tense grammeme may acquire a 'future tense' meaning.

We may see something similar in the following two sentences.

He began to wonder what she was doing, how his children were getting along. (Dreiser).

Он стал задумываться над тем, что она поделывает, как живут его дети.

In the English sentence each 'past tense' verb refers to the past and is used in accordance with its tense meaning. So there is no need for any theory of the 'sequence of tenses' to account for their usage.

It is not so in the Russian sentence. The 'present tense' verbs поделывает and живут have acquired a 'past tense' meaning under the influence of the past tense of стал in the principal clause. So it is in the Russian sentence that subordination is also shown by the relation of the tense meanings in the subordinate clause to those in the principal one.

That the 'sequence of tenses' in English is not merely a formal device, the agreement of the tense in the subordinate clause with that of the principal clause, is proved by numerous deviations from the rules of sequence.

E.-g. Did she know that lam her father»? (Shaw). Yesterday he learned that he is not a member of the Council. (Daily Worker).

It published a cartoon designed to suggest that Mrs. Knight's teaching w ill land a young man in the dock. (lb.).

There is no agreement in tense in the examples given above simply because all the verbs are used in accordance with their tense meanings.