Теоретическая грамматика английского языка 2 (стр. 39 из 54)
Thus, the idea of verbal valency, answering the principle of dividing all the notional sentence parts into obligatory and optional, proves helpful in gaining a further insight into the structure of the simple sentence; moreover, it is of crucial importance for the modern definition of the simple sentence.
In terms of valencies and obligatory positions first of all the category of "elementary sentence" is to be recognized; this is a sentence all the positions of which are obligatory. In other words, this is a sentence which, besides the principal parts, includes only com-plementive modifiers; as for supplcmcntive modifiers, they find eo place in this type of predicative construction.
After that the types of expansion should be determined which do not violate the syntactic status of the simple sentence, i.e. do not change the simple sentence into a composite one. Taking into consideration the strict monopredicative character of the simple sentence as its basic identification predicative feature, we infer that such expansions should not complicate the predicative line of the sentence by any additional predicative positions.
Finally, bearing in mind that the general identification of obligatory syntactic positions affects not only the principal parts of the sentence but is extended to the complementive secondary parts, we define the unexpanded simple sentence as a monopredicative sentence formed only by obligatory notional parts. The expanded simple sentence will, accordingly, be defined as a monopredicative sentence which includes, besides the obligatory parts, also some optional parts, i.e. some supplementive modifiers which do not constitute a predicative enlargement of the sentence.
Proceeding from the given description of the elementary sentence, it must be stressed that the pattern of this construction presents a workable means of semantico-syntactic analysis of sentences in general. Since all the parts of the elementary sentence are obligatory, each real sentence of speech should be conside I as categorially reducible to one or more elementary sentences, which expose in an explicit form its logical scheme of formation. As for the simple sentence, however intricate and expanded its structure might be, it is formed, of necessity, upon a single elementary sentence-base exposing its structural key-model. E.g.:
Tne tall trees by the island shore were shaking violently in the gusty wind.
This is an expanded simple sentence including a number of optional parts, and its complete analysis in terms of a syntagmatic parsing is rather intricate. On the other hand, applying the idea of {be elementary sentence, we immediately reveal that the sentence is built upon the key-string "The trees were shaking", i.e. on the syn-|agmatic pattern of an intransitive verb.
As we see, the notions "elementary sentence" and "sentence model" do not exclude each other, but, on the contrary, supplement each other: a model is always an abstraction, whereas an elementary sentence can and should be taken both as an abstract category (in the capacity of the "model of an elementary sentence") and as an actual utterance of real speech.
§ 4. The subject-group and the predicate-group of the sentence are its two constitutive "members", or, to choose a somewhat more specific term, its "axes" (in the Russian grammatical tradition - «составыпредложения»). According as both members are present in the composition of the sentence or only one of them, sentences are classed into "two-member" and "one-member" ones.
Scholars point out that "genuine" one-member sentences are characterized not only as expressing one member in their outer structure; in addition» as an essential feature, they do not imply the other member on the contextual lines. In other words, in accord with this view, elliptical sentences in which the subject or the predicate is contextually omitted, are analysed as "two-member" sentences [Hyish, 190, 252].
We cannot accept the cited approach because, in our opinion, it is based on an inadequate presupposition that in the system of language there is a strictly defined, "absolute" demarcation line between the two types of constructions. In reality, though, each one-member sentence» however pure it might appear from the point of view of non-association with an ellipsis, still, on closer observation, does expose traits of this association.
For instance, the sentence "Come on!" exemplifying one of the classical one-member sentence varieties, implies a situational person (persons) stimulated to perform an action, i.e. the subject of the event. Similarly, the construction "All right!" rendering agreement on the part of the speaker, is a representative unit standing for a normal two-member utterance in its contextual-bound implication plane, otherwise it would be senseless.
Bearing in mind the advanced objection, our approach to the syntactic category of axis part of the sentence is as follows.
All simple sentences of English should be divided into two-axis constructions and one-axis constructions.
In a two-axis sentence, the subject axis and the predicate axis are directly and explicitly expressed in the outer structure. This concerns all the .three cardinal communicative types of sentences. E.g.:
The books come out of the experiences. What has been happening here? You better go back to bed.
In a one-axis sentence only one axis or its part is explicitly expressed, the other one being non-presented in the outer structure of the sentence. Cf.:
"Who will meet us at the airport?" - "Mary."
The response utterance is a one-axis sentence with the subject-axis expressed and the predicate-axis implied: → 'Mary will meet us at the airport. Both the non-expression of the predicate and its actual implication in the sub-text are obligatory, since the complete two-axis construction renders its own connotations.
"And what is your opinion of me?" - "Hard as nails, absolutely ruthless, a bom intriguer, and as self-centred as they make 'cm."
The response utterance is a one-axis sentence with the predicate-axis expressed ( predicative unit) and the subject-axis (together with the link-verb of the predicate) implied: →You are hard as nails, etc.
"I thought he might have said something to you about it." - "Not a word."
The response utterance is a one-axis sentence with the predicate-axis partially expressed (by the object) and the subject-axis together with the verbal part of the predicate-axis implied: → He said not a word to me.
"Glad to see you after all these years!"
The sentence is a one-axis unit with the predicate-axis expressed and the subject-axis implied as a form of familiarity: → I am glad to see you ...
All the cited examples belong to "elliptical" types of utterances in so far as they possess quite definite "vacant" positions or zero-positions capable of being supplied with the corresponding fillers implicit in the situational contexts. Since the restoration of the absent axis in such sentences is, so to speak, "free of avail", we class them as "free" one-axis sentences. The term "elliptical" one-axis sentences can also be used, though it is not very lucky here; indeed, "ellipsis" as a sentence-curtailing process can in principle affect both two-axis and one-axis sentences, so the term might be misleading.
Alongside the demonstrated free one-axis sentences, i.e. sentences with a direct contextual axis-implication, there are one-axis sentences without a contextual implication of this kind; in other words, their absent axis cannot be restored with the same ease and, above all, semantic accuracy.
By way of example, let us read the following passage from S. Maugham's short story "Appearance and Reality":
Monsieur Le Sueur was a man of action. He went straight up to Lisette and smacked her hard on her right cheek with his left hand and then smacked her hard on the left cheek with his right hand. "Brute," screamed Lisette.
The one-axis sentence used by the heroine does imply the you-subject and can, by association, be expanded into the two-axis one "You are a brute" or "You brute", but then the spontaneous "scream-style" of the utterance in the context (a cry of indignation and revolt) will be utterly distorted.
Compare another context, taken from R. Kipling's "The Light That Failed":
"... I'm quite miserable enough already." - "Why? Because you're going away from Mrs Jennett?"-"No."-"From me, then?" No answer for a long time. Dick dared not look at her.
The one-axis sentence "No answer for a long time" in the narrative is associated by variant lingual relations with the two-axis sentence "There was no answer...". But on similar grounds the association can be extended to the construction "He received no answer for a long time" or "No answer was given for a long time" or some other sentence supplementing the given utterance and rendering a like meaning. On the other hand, the peculiar position in the text clearly makes all these associations into remote ones: the two-axis version of the construction instead of the existing one-axis one would destroy the expressive property of the remark conveying Dick's strain by means of combining the author's line of narration with the hero's inner perception of events.
Furthermore, compare the psychologically tense description of packing up before departure given in short, deliberately disconnected nominative phrase-sentences exposing the heroine's disillusions (from D. du Maurier's "Rebecca"):
Packing up. The nagging worry of departure. Lost keys, unwritten labels, tissue paper lying on the floor. I hate it all.
Associations referring to the absent axes in the cited sentences are indeed very vague. The only unquestionable fact about the relevant implications is that they should be of demonstrative-introductory character making the presented nominals into predicative names.
As we see, there is a continuum between the one-axis sentences of the free type and the most rigid ones exemplified above. Still, since all the constructions of the second order differ from those of the first order just in that they are not free, we choose to class them as "fixed" one-axis sentences.
Among the fixed one-axis sentences quite a few subclasses are to be recognized, including nominative (nominal) constructions, greeting formulas, introduction formulas, incentives, excuses, etc. Many of such constructions are related to the corresponding two-axis sentences not by the mentioned "vague" implication, but by representation; indeed, such one-axis sentence-formulas as affirmations, negations, certain ready-made excuses, etc, are by themselves not word-sentences, but rather sentence-representatives that exist only in combination with the full-sense antecedent predicative constructions. Cf:.
"You can't move any farther back? "-"No." (I.e. "I can't move any farther back"). "D'you want me to pay for your drink?" - "Yes, old boy." (I.e. "Yes, I want you to pay for my drink, old boy"). Etc.
As for the isolated exclamations of interjectional type ("Good Lord!", "Dear me!" and the like), these are not sentences by virtue of their not possessing the inner structure of actual division even through associative implications (see Ch. XXII).
Summing up what has been said about the one-axis sentences we must stress the two things: first, however varied, they form a minor set within the general system of English sentence patterns; second, they all are related to two-axis sentences either by direct or by indirect association.
§ 5. The semantic classification of simple sentences should be effected at least on the three bases: first, on the basis of the subject categarial meanings; second, on the basis of the predicate categorial meanings; third, on the basis of the subject-object relation.
Reflecting the categories of the subject, simple sentences are divided into personal and impersonal. The further division of the personal sentences is into human and non-human; human - into definite and indefinite; non-human - into animate and inanimate. The further essential division of impersonal sentences is into factual (It rains. It is five o'clock) and perceptional (It smells of hay here).
The differences in subject categorial meanings are sustained by the obvious differences in subject-predicate combinability.
Reflecting the categories of the predicate, simple sentences are divided into process featuring ("verbal") and, in the broad sense, substance featuring (including substance as such and substantive quality - "nominal"). Among the process featuring sentences acttonal and statal ones are to be discriminated (The window is opening-The window is glistening in the sun); among the substance featuring sentences factual and perceptional ones are to be discriminated (The sea is rough - The place seems quiet).
Finally, reflecting the subject - object relation, simple sentences should be divided into subjective (John lives In London), objective (John reads a book) and neutral or "potentially" objective (John reads), capable of implying both the transitive action of the syntactic person and the syntactic person's intransitive characteristic.
SIMPLE SENTENCE: PARADIGMATIC STRUCTURE
§ 1. Traditional grammar studied the sentence from the point of view of its syntagmatic structure: the sentence was approached as a string of certain parts fulfilling the corresponding syntactic functions. As for paradigmatic relations, which, as we know, are inseparable from syntagmatic relations, they were explicitly revealed only as part of morphological descriptions, because, up to recent times, the idea of the sentence model with its functional variations was not developed. Moreover, some representatives of early modern linguistics, among them F. de Saussure, specially noted that it was quite natural for morphology to develop paradigmatic (associative) observations, while syntax "by its very essence" should concern itself with the linear connections of words.
Thus, the sentence was traditionally taken at its face value as a ready unit of speech, and systemic connections between sentences were formulated in terms of classifications. Sentences were studied and classified according to the purpose of communication, according to the types of the subject and predicate, according to whether they are simple or composite, expanded or unexpanded, compound or complex, etc.
In contemporary modern linguistics paradigmatic structuring of lingual connections and dependencies has penetrated into the would-be "purely syntagmatic" sphere of the sentence. The paradigmatic approach to this element of rendering communicative information, as we have mentioned before, marked a new stage in the development of the science of language; indeed, it is nothing else than paradigmatic approach that has provided a comprehensive theoretical ground for treating the sentence not only as a ready unit of speech, but also and above all as a meaningful lingual unit existing in a pattern form.
§ 2. Paradigmatics finds its essential expression in a system of oppositions making the corresponding meaningful (functional) categories. Syntactic oppositions are realized by correlated sentence patterns, the observable relations between which can be described as "transformations", i.e. as transitions from one pattern of certain notional parts to another pattern of the same notional parts. These transitions, being oppositional, at the same time disclose derivational connections of sentence patterns. In other words, some of the patterns are to be approached as base patterns, while others, as their transforms.