Курсовая работа: Structure of sentence

The analysis of sentences like He was seen to enter the house is a point at issue. Traditionally the infinitive is said to form part of the 'complex subject' (He…to enter). B.A. Ilyish maintains that though satisfactory from the logical point of view, this interpretation seems to be artificial grammatically, this splitting of the subject being alien to English. Accordingly B.A. Ilyish suggests that only he should be treated as the subject of the sentence, whereas was seen to enter represents a peculiar type of compound predicate.

The traditional analysis, however, seems preferable, for it admits of treating the sentence as a passive transform of They saw him enter the house with the 'complex object' him enter becoming a 'complex subject' he… to enter. As to the splitting of the subject, it is another device to bring the structural parts of the subject and predicate together (he was), which is so typical of English.

Some authors as, for example, A. Smirnitsky, M. Ganshina, and N. Vasilevskaya speak of definite-personal, indefinite-personal and impersonal sentences in Modern English. We see no syntactical ground whatever for this classification since definite-personal, indefinite-personal, etc. sentences have no structural peculiarities typical of these classes. It is a semantical classification of subjects, not sentences.

If we compare the subject in English with that of Russian we shall find a considerable difference between them.

1. In Modern Russian the subject is as a rule characterized by a distinct morphological feature – the nominative case, whereas in English it is for the most part (unless it is expressed by a personal pronoun or the pronoun who in the nominative case) indicated by the position it occupies in the sentence.

2. In Modern Russian the subject is much less obligatory as a part of the sentence than in English. One-member sentences are numerous and of various types, among them sentences like nude flume. In English a finite verb (barring the 'imperative mood' finites) does not, as a rule, make a sentence without a subject.

3. In English the subject may be a syntactical word-morpheme, a gerund or a complex, which is, naturally, alien to Russian.

The Predicate

The predicate is the member of a predication containing the mood and tense (or only mood) components of predicativity.

E. g. This dictionary employs a pronunciation that is easy to learn. (Thorndike).

I was thinking that Dinny has probably had no lunch. (Galsworthy).

I should hate to make you cry. (lb.).

The predicate can be a word or a syntactical word-morpheme. When it is a notional word, it is not only the structural but the notional predicate as well.

E. g. A picture often shows the meaning of a word more clearly than a description. (Witty).

When the predicate is a semi-notional verb or a syntactical word-morpheme, it is only a structural predicate and is usually connected with a notional word which makes the notional predicate.

E.g. He was strong enough for that. (Galsworthy). We can assist our oppressed brothers in South Africa in their struggle for freedom. (Daily Worker). Does anyone know of that but me? (Galsworthy).

Syntactically strong, assist and know are complements to the corresponding verbs.

Similarly, if we agree with A.I. Smirnitsky that have in I have friends is a semi-notional verb, we may consider friends as the notional predicate. But syntactically friends is a complement to the verb have.

As we have seen, predicates may be divided morphologically into words and word-morphemes, and semantically intonational, semi-notional and lexically empty (structural).

What is traditionally called a predicate is really the combination of the structural and the notional predicate. If we had a name for the combination, that would enable us to make the traditional analysis^ Let us then call the combination a communicative predicate. We may say then that communicative predicates are in accordance with their structure divided into 'simple' (consisting of one word) and 'compound' (of more than one word). According to their morphological composition they are divided into 'verbal' (must see', is to believe) and 'nominal' (is a student, became angry). As we see, the latter division depends on the complements as well as the division into process and qualifying predicates, which will be discussed in the corresponding chapter

When comparing the predicates in English and in Russian, we must first of all note the absence of syntactical word-morphemes used as predicates and the scarcity of morphological word-morphemes in Russian. So the division into structural and notional (parts of) predicates is not so essential in Russian as it is in English.

Secondly, there are many more sentences without finite verbs in Russian than in English. Онстудент. Онабольна. Емухолодно.

Thirdly, a Russian predication contains a predicate without a subject much more often than in English.

Complements

The verb in the sentence forms the greatest number of word-combinations. The adjuncts of all these combinations are united by the term complements. But the complements of a verb are so numerous and variegated that it is feasible to subdivide them into several groups correlated with the subclasses of verbs. As we know, verbs divide into notional, semi-notional and structural ones. We shall call the adjuncts of the latter two groups predicative complements (predicatives). Notional verbs are subdivided into objective and subjective. The common adjuncts of both groups will be termed adverbial complements (adverbials), those of objective verbs alone – objective complements (objects).

Conclusion

In the conclusion of my work, I would like to say some words according the done investigation. The main research was written in the main part of my course paper. So here I’ll give content of it with the description of question discussed in each paragraph.

The main part of my work consists of following items:

· « The Sentence ». Here I gave the definition to the term sentence.