Similar diagnostic procedures expose the layer-structure of the actual division in composite syntactic constructions. For instance, in the following complex sentence rhematic question-tests easily reveal the three declarative rhemes on the three consecutive syntactic layers:
I knew that Mr. Wade had been very excited by something that he had found out.
Test for the first syntactic layer: What did I know?
Test for the second syntactic layer: What state was Mr. Wade in?
Test for the third syntactic layer: What made him excited? (By what was he excited?)
The strictly imperative sentence, as different from the strictly declarative sentence, does not express by its immediate destination any statement of fact, i.e. any proposition proper. It is only based on a proposition, without formulating it directly. Namely, the proposition underlying the imperative sentence is reversely contrasted against the content of the expressed inducement, since an urge to do something (affirmative inducement) is founded on the premise that something is not done or is otherwise not affected by the wanted action, and, conversely, an urge not to do something (negative inducement) is founded on the directly opposite premise. Cf:.
Let's go out at once! (The premise: We are in.) Never again take that horrible woman into your confidence. Jerry! (The premise: Jerry has taken that horrible woman into his confidence.)
Thus, the rheme of the imperative utterance expresses the informative nucleus not of an explicit proposition, but of an inducement - a wanted (or unwanted) action together with its referential attending elements (objects, qualities, circumstances).
Due to the communicative nature of the inducement addressed to the listener, its thematic subject is usually zeroed, though it can be represented in the form of direct address. Cf:.
Don't try to sidetrack me (J. Braine). Put that dam' dog down, Fleur; I can't see your face (J. Galsworthy). Kindly tell me what you meant, Wilfrid (J. Galsworthy).
Inducements that include in the address also the speaker himself, or are directed, through the second person medium, to a third person (persons) present their thematic subjects explicitly in the construction. E.g.:
I say, Bob, let's try to reconstruct the scene as it developed. Please don't let's quarrel over the speeds now. Let her produce the document if she has it.
The whole composition of an ordinary imperative utterance is usually characterized by a high informative value, so that the rheme proper, or the informative peak, may stand here not so distinctly against the background information as in the declarative utterance. Still, rhematic testing of imperative utterances does disclose the communicative stratification of their constituents. Compare the question-tests of a couple of the cited examples:
Put that dam' dog down, Fleur. → What is Fleur to do with the dog? Kindly tell me what you meant, Wilfrid. → What is Wilfrid to tell the speaker?
As for the thematic, and especially the subrhematic (transitional) elements of the imperative utterance, they often are functionally charged with the type-grading of inducement itself, i.e. with making it into a command, prohibition, request, admonition, entreaty, etc. Compare, in addition to the cited, some more examples to this effect:
Let us at least remember to admire each other (L. Hellman). Ob, please stop it.. Please, please stop it (E. Hemingway). Get outbefore I break your dirty little neck (A. Hailey).
The second-person inducement may include the explicit pronominal subject, but such kind of constructions should be defined as of secondary derivation. They are connected with a complicated informative content to be conveyed to the listener-performer, expressing, on the one hand, the choice of the subject out of several persons-participants of the situation, and on the other hand, appraisals rendering various ethical connotations (in particular, the type-grading of inducement mentioned above). Cf.:
"What about me?" she asked. - "Nothing doing. You go to bed and sleep" (A. Christie). Don't you worry about me, sir. I shall be all right (B.K. Seymour).
At a further stage of complication, the subject of the inducement may be shifted to the position of the rheme. E.g.:
"... We have to do everything we can." - "You do it," he said. "I'm tired" (E. Hemingway).
The essentially different identifications of the rheme in the two imperative utterances of the cited example can be proved by transformational testing: ... →What we have to do is (to do) everything we can. ... →The person who should do it is you.
The inducement with the rhematic subject of the latter type may be classed as the "(informatively) shifted inducement".
§ 6. As far as the strictly interrogative sentence is concerned, its actual division is uniquely different from the actual division of both the declarative and the imperative sentence-types.
The unique quality of the interrogative actual division is determined by the fact that the interrogative sentence, instead of conveying some relatively self-dependent content, expresses an inquiry about information which the speaker (as a participant of a typical question-answer situation) does not possess. Therefore the rheme of the interrogative sentence, as the nucleus of the inquiry, is informationally open (gaping); its function consists only in marking the rhematic position in the response sentence and programming the content of its filler in accord with the nature of the inquiry.
Different types of questions present different types of open rhemes.
In the pronominal ("special") question, the nucleus of inquiry is expressed by an interrogative pronoun. The pronoun is immediately connected with the part of the sentence denoting the object or phenomenon about which the inquiry ("condensed" in the pronoun) is made. The gaping pronominal meaning is to be replaced in the answer by the wanted actual information. Thus, the rheme of the answer is the reverse substitute of the interrogative pronoun: the two make up a rhematic unity in the broader question-answer construction. As for the thematic part of the answer, it is already expressed in the question, therefore in common speech it is usually zeroed. E.g.:
"Why do you think so?" - "Because mostly I keep my eyes open, miss, and I talk to people" (A. Hailey).
The superpositional rhematic test for the pronominal question may be effected in the following periphrastic-definitional form: → The question about your thinking so is: why?
For the sake of analytical convenience this kind of superposition may be reduced as follows: → You think so - why?
Compare some more pronominal interrogative superpositions:
What happens to a man like Hawk Harrap as the years go by? (W. Saroyan). →To a man like Hawk Harrap, as the years go by-what happens? How do you make that out, mother? (E.M. Forster) →You make that out, mother,-how? How's the weather in the north? (D. du Maurier) →The weather in the north-how is it? What's behind all this? (A. Hailey) →Behind all this is-what?
The rheme of non-pronominal questions is quite different from the one described. It is also open, but its openness consists in at least two semantic suggestions presented for choice to the listener. The choice is effected in the response; in other words, the answer closes the suggested alternative according to the interrogative-rhematic programme inherent in it. This is clearly seen in the structure of ordinary, explicit alternative questions. E.g.: Will you take it away or open it here? (Th. Dreiser)
The superposition of the utterance may be presented as follows: →You in relation to it-will take (it) away, will open (it) here?
The alternative question may have a pronominal introduction, emphasizing the open character of its rheme. Cf.:
In which cave is the offence alleged, the Buddhist or the Jain? (E.M. Forster)
The superposition: → The offence is alleged - in the Buddhist cave, in the Jain cave?
Thus, in terms of rhematic reverse substitution, the pronominal question is a question of unlimited substitution choice, while the alternative question is a question of a limited substitution choice, the substitution of the latter kind being, as a rule, expressed implicitly. This can be demonstrated by a transformation applied to the first of the two cited examples of alternative questions: Will you take it away or open it here? →Where will you handle it - take it away or open it here?
The non-pronominal question requiring either confirmation or negation ("general" question of yes-по response type) is thereby implicitly alternative, though the inquiry inherent in it concerns not the choice between some suggested facts, but the choice between the existence or non-existence of an indicated fact. In other words, it is a question of realized rhematic substitution (or of "no substitution choice"), but with an open existence factor (true to life or not true to life?), which makes up its implicitly expressed alternative. This can be easily shown by a superposition: Are they going to stay long? → They are going to stay - long, not long?
The implicit alternative question can be made into an explicit one, which as a rule is very emphatic, i.e. stylistically "forced". The negation in the implied alternative part is usually referred to the verb. Cf:.→Are they going to stay long, or are they not going to stay long?
The cited relation of this kind of question to interrogative reverse substitution (and, together with it, the open character of its rheme) is best demonstrated by the corresponding pronominal transformation: → How long are they going to stay - long (or not long)?
As we see, the essential difference between the two types of alternative questions, the explicit one and the implicit one, remains valid even if the latter is changed into an explicit alternative question (i.e. into a stylistically forced explicit alternative question). This difference is determined by the difference in the informative composition of the interrpgative constructions compared.
In general terms of meaning, the question of the first type (the normal explicit alternative question) should be classed as the alternative question of fact, since a choice between two or more facts is required by it; the question of the second type (the implicit alternative question) should be classed as the alternative question of truth, since it requires the statement of truth or non-truth of the indicated fact. In terms of actual division, the question of the first type. should be classed as the polyperspcctive alternative question (bipcrspective, tripcrspcctive, etc.), because it presents more than one informative perspectives (more than one actual divisions) for the listener's choice; the question of the second type, as opposed to the polyperspective, should be classed as the monoperspective alternative question, because its both varieties (implicit and explicit) express only one informative perspective, which is presented to the listener for the existential yes-no appraisal.
§ 7. The exposition of the fundamental role of actual division in the formation of the communicative sentence-types involves, among other things, the unequivocal refutation of recognizing by some linguists the would-be "purely exclamatory sentence" that cannot be reduced to any of the three demonstrated cardinal communicative types.*
*The existence of the "purely exclamatory sentence" is defended, in particular, by BA. Ilyish in his cited book (p. 186-187).
Indeed, by "purely exclamatory sentences" are meant no other things than interjectional exclamations of ready-made order such as "Great Heavens!", "Good Lord!", "For God's sake!", "Fiddle-dee-dee!", "Oh, I say!" and the like, which, due to various situational conditions, find themselves in self-dependent, proposemically isolated positions in the text. Cf.:
"Oh, for God's sake! "-"Oh, for God's sake!" the boy had repeated (W. Saroyan). "Ah!" said Lady Mont. "That reminds me" (J. Galsworthy).
As is seen from the examples, the isolated positions of the interjectional utterances do not make them into any meaningfully articulate, grammatically predicated sentences with their own informative perspective (either explicit, or implicit). They remain not signals of proposemically complete thoughts, not "communicative utterances" (see above), but mere symptoms of emotions, consciously or unconsciously produced shouts of strong feelings. Therefore the highest rank that they deserve in any relevant linguistic classification of "single free units of speech" is "non-sentential utterances" (which is just another name for Ch. Fries's "noncommunicative utterances").
Of quite another nature are exclamatory sentences with emphatic introducers derived on special productive syntactic patterns. Cf.:
Oh, that Mr. Thornspell hadn't been so reserved! How silly of you! If only I could raise the necessary sum! Etc.
These constructions also express emotions, but they are meaningfully articulate and proposemically complete. They clearly display a definite nominative composition which is predicated, i.e. related to reality according to the necessary grammatical regularities. And they inevitably belong to quite a definite communicative type of sentences, namely, to the declarative type.
§ 8. The vast set of constructional sentence models possessed by language is formed not only by cardinal, monofunctional communicative types; besides these, it includes also intermediary predicative constructions distinguished by mixed communicative features. The true nature of such intermediary constructions can be disclosed in the light of the actual division theory combined with the general theory of paradigmatic oppositions.
Observations conducted on the said principles show that intermediary communicative sentence models may be identified between all the three cardinal communicative correlations (viz., statement - question, statement - inducement, inducement - question); they have grown and are sustained in language as a result of the transference of certain characteristic features from one communicative type of sentences to another.
§ 9. In the following dialogue sequence the utterance which is declarative by its formal features, at the same time contains a distinet pronominal question:
"Iwonder why they come to me about it. That's your job, sweetheart"-I looked up from Jasper, my face red as fire. "Darling," I said, "I meant to tell you before, but-but I forgot" (D. du Maurier).
Semantico-syntactic comparison of the two utterances produced by the participants of the cited dialogue clearly shows in the initial utterance the features inherently peculiar to the interrogative communicative type, namely, its open rhematic part ("why they come to me about it") and the general programming character of its actual division in relation to the required response.
Compare some more examples of a similar nature:
"But surely I may treat him as a human being." - "Most certainly not" (B. Shaw). "I don't disturb you, I hope,Mr Cokane." - "By no means" (B. Shaw). "Wait a second, you haven't told me your address." - "Oh, I'm staying at the Hotel du Phare" (A. Christie). "I should like to hear your views on that," replied Utterson (R.L. Stevenson).
As is seen from the examples, utterances intermediary between statements and questions convey meanings and connotations that supplement the direct programming of the answer effected by strictly monofunctional, cardinal interrogative constructions. Namely, they render the connotation of insistence in asking for information, they express a more definite or less definite supposition of the nature of information possessed by the listener, they present a suggestion to the listener to perform a certain action or imply a request for per-misson to perform an action, etc.
On the other hand, in the structural framework of the interrogative sentence one can express a statement. This type of utterance is classed as the "rhetorical question" - an expressive construction that has been attracting the closest attention of linguistic observers since ancient times.
A high intensity of declarative functional meaning expressed by rhetorical questions is best seen in various proverbs and maxims based on this specifically emphatic predicative unit. Cf.:
Can a leopard change his spots? Can man be free if woman be a slave? 0 shame! Where is thy blush? Why ask the Bishop when the Pope's around? Who shall decide when the doctors disagree?