Курсовая работа: Structure of sentence

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Some analogy can be drawn between the structure of a word and the structure of a sentence.

The morphemes of a word are formally united by stress. The words of a sentence are formally united by intonation.

The centre of a word is the root. The centre of a sentence is the predication.

Some words have no other morphemes but the root (ink, too, but). Some sentences have no other words but those of the predication (Birds fly. It rains. Begin.).

Words may have some morphemes besides the root (unbearable). Sentences may have some words besides the predication (Yesterday it rained heavily.).

Sometimes a word is made of a morpheme that is usually not a root (ism). Sometimes sentences are made of words that are usually not predications (Heavy rain).

Words may have two or more roots (blue-eyed, merry-go-round). Sentences may have two or more predications (He asked me if I knew where she lived.).

The roots may be co-ordinated or subordinated (Anglo-Saxon, blue-bell). The predications may be co-ordinated and subordinated (She spoke and he listened. He saw Sam did not believe).

The roots may be connected directly (footpath) or indirectly, with the help of some morpheme salesman. The predications may be connected directly (7 think he knows) or indirectly, with the help of some word (The day passed as others had-passed.).

The demarcation line between a word with more than one root and a combination of words is often very vague (cf. blackboard and black board, brother-in-law and brother in arms). The demarcation line between a sentence with more than one predication and a combination of sentences is often very vague.

Cf. She’d only to cross the pavement. But still she waited. (Mansfield).

As we know, a predication in English is usually a combination of two words (or word-morphemes) united by predicativity, or, in other words, a predicative combination of words. Apart from that the words of a predication do not differ from other' words in conforming to the general rules of. Combinability. The rules of grammatical combinability do not admit of *boys speaks or *he am. The combination *the fish barked is strange as far as lexical combinability is concerned, etc.

All the other words of a sentence are added to those of the predication in accordance with their combinability to make the communication as complete as the speaker wishes. The predication Boys play can make a sentence by itself. But the sentence can be extended by realizing the combinability of the noun boys and the verb play into the three noisy boys play boisterously upstairs. We can develop the sentence into a still more extended one. But however extended the sentence is it does not lose its integrity. Every word in it is not just a word, it becomes part of the sentence and must be evaluated in its relation to other parts and to the whole sentence much in the same way as a morpheme in a word is not just a morpheme, but the root of a word or a prefix, or a suffix, or an inflection.

Depending on their relation to the members of the predication the words of a sentence usually fall into two groups – the group of the subject and the group of the predicate.

Sometimes there is a third group, of parenthetical words, which mostly belongs to the sentence as a whole. In the sentence below the subject group is separated from the predicate group by the parenthetical group.

That last thing of yours, dear Flora, was really remarkable.

As already mentioned, the distribution and the function of a word-combination in a sentence are usually determined by its head-word: by the noun in noun word-combinations, by the verb in verb word-combinations, etc.

The adjuncts of word-combinations in the sentence are added to their head-words in accordance with their combinability, to develop the sentence, to form its secondary parts which may be classified with regard to their head-words.

All the adjuncts of noun word-combinations in the sentence can be united under one name, attributes. All the adjuncts of verb (finite or non-finite) word-combinations may be termed complements. In the sentence below, the attributes are spaced out and the complements are in heavy type.

He often took Inene to the theatre. Instinctively choosing the modern Society plays with the modern Society conjugal problems. (Galsworthy).

The adjuncts of all other word-combinations in the sentence may be called extensions. In the sentences below the extensions are spaced out.