VILNIAUS PEDAGOGINIS UNIVERSITETASUŽSIENIO KALBŲ FAKULTETAS

ANGLŲ KALBOS DIDAKTIKOS KATEDRA

Valerija NorušaitienėJurgita Trapnauskienė

THE BASICS OF ENGLISH SYNTAX:THE SIMPLE SENTENCE

Teaching Aid

Vilnius, 2008

UDK 802.0-56(075.8)

No-95

Metodinė priemonė apsvarstyta Vilniaus pedagoginio universiteto Užsienio

kalbų fakulteto Anglų kalbos didaktikos katedros posėdyje 2008 m. lapkričio 4 d.

(protokolo Nr. 8), Užsienio kalbų fakulteto tarybos posėdyje 2008 m. lapkričio 5 d.

(protokolo Nr. 2) ir rekomenduota spausdinti.

Recenzavo:

dr. Jurga Cibulskienė (Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas)

Birutė Bersėnienė (Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas)

ISBN 978-9955-20-383-4

© Valerija Norušaitienė, 2008

© Jurgita Trapnauskienė, 2008

© Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas, 2008

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Contents PrefaCe 5

IntroduCtIon 6

I. Pre-readIngremarks 9symbolsinthetext 15

II.struCturaltyPesofsentenCes 16two-memberandone-membersentences 16

elliptical(incomplete)sentences 18

Practicesection 19

III. CommunICatIvetyPesofsentenCes 21declarativesentences 22

Interrogativesentences 23

generalquestions/yes-noquestions 23

alternativequestions 24

suggestivequestions 26

tag/disjunctivequestions 27

specialquestions/Pronominalquestions/Wh-questions 29

rhetoricalquestions 32

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Imperativesentences 33

exclamatorysentences 38

Practicesection 40

Iv. syntaCtICCharaCterIstICsofasImPleenglIshsentenCe 42thesubject:types,kindsandwaysofexpression 45

thePredicate 52

theobject 56

theadjuncts 59

theIndependentelementsofthesentence 62

summary:Waysofexpandinganenglishsentence 63

Practicesection 64

v. negatIon 68Practicesection 74

vI. InvertedWordorder(InversIon) 77Practicesection 80

referenCes 81

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PrefaCe

This book is meant, first and foremost, for the bachelor students of English as well as for in-service teachers of English at the Competence Development Centre at Vilnius Pedagogical University. Other readers interested in English syntax may also find something of interest in the comprehensive approach towards the subject under discussion.It provides answers to the following questions about the English simple sen-tence:

• What are structural and communicative types of the English sim-ple sentence?

• What does the simple sentence consist of?• How can a sentence be expanded to express an idea as fully and

clearly as necessary?It also provides Practical sections to enable the reader to use the acquired knowledge of sentence characteristics.We express our sincere gratitude to the Lect. Birutė Bersėnienė and Dr Jurga Cibulskienė who kindly agreed to review the book. We also appreciate the goodwill of Ms. Gwyneth Fox, the Associate Editor of the Macmillan English Dictionary for permission to include some examples from the dictionary ma-terials as illustration to our statements.

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IntroduCtIonSuccessful communication is a most efficient way to contribute to and even ensure a person’s as well as a society’s well-being, both emotional, physical, social and material. It is usually based on one’s natural and/or developed ability to communicate, i.e. to convey the intended infor-mation in a most proper and understandable way in order to establish friendly long-standing relationships. One of the expected preconditions to establishing harmonious relationships is knowledge of linguistic units reflecting the communicated reality and ways of their proper arrange-ment alongside the psychology of communication. Since language learners are apt to make use of mostly verbal communication, they ex-pect to acquire both lexical and grammatical competence to success-fully communicate.

With all this in mind, the present study of the English simple sentence aims at sharing our knowledge and understanding of the subject with language learners to facilitate their learning of the structural, semantic and communicative aspects of both the simple sentence and its constitu-ent parts. This will involve an integrated approach towards lexical, mor-phological and syntactic features of syntactic units, from basic to most complex ones, which will surely enable the learner to clearly put across the intended message.

We sincerely believe that the learner, on the basics of the acquired know-ledge of the above-mentioned characteristics of English collocations and

Mend your speech a little, lest it mar your fortune.

Shakespeare, King Lear

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sentences, will be able to develop the following competences in order to achieve their communicative aims:

1. Linguistic – semantic and grammatical, which will result in a correct and reasonable way of conveying the intended message from a struc-tural point of view, i.e. what word or phrase to begin with and what structure should follow the said.

2. Communicative– oral and written, which will enable the learner to choose linguistic units in accordance with the communication aims that are closely related to and determined by the circumstances and surroundings the learners find themselves in; in a friendly circle of peers, short, even irregular structures and emotionally coloured lex-emes are preferred, while at an official meeting or conference the lis-teners expect precisely worded sentences; the latter is also required in writing articles or longer texts, especially academic ones. This com-petence involves the following competences:• Receptive, the learners’ ability to understand what they hear or

read: I think I’m gonna need some help = I think I am going to need some help. This skill is especially important in informal conversa-tions, while watching films or listening to songs.

• Productive,the learners’ ability to properly express their intentions and wishes: ‘I’ll do it’ is used for an ordinary future action and ‘I will do it’ for a future action arising from a speaker’s wish or desire.

3. Professional, which will result from the trainee teachers’ essential knowledge and skills of personal, impersonal or formal communica-tion in the teaching process with the aim of achieving educational aims both at school, in the family and various social events. Following the proverb ‘Like teacher, like pupil’ all communication partners ex-pect and welcome appropriate and easily understandable messages supported by a friendly atmosphere.

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In order to successfully acquire the material discussed in the present study by addressing both instructive and practical tasks, the learner is ex-pected to be familiar with a couple of general statements which will add to developing one’s communicative and professional competences:

• Successful communication is usually based on a speaker’s positive attitude towards the communication partner(s). If the attitude is somewhat negative, the speaker should postpone the conversa-tion or, if need be, limit oneself to a civil way of transmitting in-formation, beliefs or attitudes to the audiences, with special at-tention to the modality of utterances, actually occurring pieces of language, completely specified at all levels of structure, including its full contextual meaning on the particular occasion of use (i.e. speaker’s meaning) (Croft 2000: 244).

• Any communication process is usually affected by certain factors, such as theageandsocialstatus or even appearances of the com-munication partners as well as thetimeandplace and the topic of the conversation, which will call for a careful choice of appropriate linguistic units.

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I.Pre-readIngremarksAlongside the general statements it is important to keep in mind some specific points related to the linguistic nature of the simple sentence, which are also observed in all inflectional languages, Lithuanian among them. This will provide practical possibilities for the learner to compare the foreign and native languages in ways of expressing intended messages.

1. Most messages, especially in informal oral communication, may be passed on in a) basic or kernel, i.e. one-word structures and b) full or extended, i.e. phrases, forms: ‘Yes’ and ‘I’ll do it’ for agreement. As extended linguistic units – phrases/sentences – consist of individual lexemes, let us remember that the latter are part of the morphological system of language which possesses its own characteristics, impor-tant in the syntactical arrangement of the elements.

2. Morphology is a part of grammar which deals with a) morphemes– the smallest structural units that have meaning (Biber 2002:458) in-cluding prefixes (un-, re-, etc.), suffixes (-able, -ful, etc.) and one-root/stem lexemes (work, luck, victory, etc.) as well as b) word classes– groups of words possessing common grammatical (morphological and syntactic) and semantic properties. The word classes which play an important role in constructing an English simple sentence are as follows:• TheNoun, a word class used to refer to and name a concrete ob-

ject, substance or entity or an abstract idea, quality or state and

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is characterized by the grammatical categories of number, gender and case: a book – books, love, carefulness, government, etc.

• TheAdjective, a word class that refers to such qualities of a noun as size, colour, origin, etc., possesses the grammatical category of degrees of comparison for qualitative adjectives as well as the abil-ity to be partially or fully substantivized, i.e. to become a noun in meaning and form: good – better – best, blue, wooden, national, the young (= young people, youth), conservatives (= people with con-servative beliefs or members of the Conservative party).

• TheNumeral, a word class that refers to a definite number of ob-jects or people or their position in a series presented in the cardi-nal and ordinal forms respectively: one – first, etc. The indefinite number is usually expressed by adjectives or pronouns: many, (a) few, some, etc.

• ThePronoun, a word class that is employed to substitute a noun in its common or genitive case in order to convey a most general meaning: ‘he’ may stand for ‘the man’, ‘Mr. Brown’, ‘my dog’, etc. as well as an adjective: some names, any help, every book, etc. It may have some nominal grammatical categories (number, case): this – these, somebody’s bag, etc.

• TheVerb, a word class that refers to an action in process or state directly: to speak, to stay, etc. or indirectly: can, will, etc. as well as is characterized by such grammatical categories as person, number, tense, aspect, voice and mood: live – lives – has lived – should live, etc. It is necessary to point out the fact that a great number of posi-tions in an English simple sentence are occupied by such non-finite verbal forms as infinitives, the basic or initial forms of the verb: (to) go; present and pastparticiples, fourth and third forms respec-tively: writing-written; gerunds, ‘-ing’ forms combining verbal and nominal features and use in certain positions in accordance with the meaning intended: in ‘reading people’, ‘reading’ is a present participle as it indicates the process of the action, i.e. people who

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are reading (something), while in ‘ a reading room’ the ‘–ing’ form is a gerund employed to indicate the purpose of the object, i.e. a room for reading.

Similar features are observed in using the infinitive, whose nominal and verbal features will be disclosed below.

• TheAdverb, a word class that refers to circumstances, in which the situation described in the simple sentence occurs, such as time: now, then; place: here, there; manner: well, carefully; frequency: once, always, daily (cf. the adjective ‘daily’ in ‘a daily paper’); degree: enough, quite; intensification: very, absolutely, too, and has the grammatical category of degrees of comparison for some kinds of adverbs: well-better-best. In the sentence, the adverb may modify or characterize nouns: the people here, adjectives: very interesting, and verbs: to enjoy (it) greatly/to greatly enjoy (it).

• ThePreposition, a word class that links words into a phrase, usu-ally attributive, with the intention of adding a kind of relationship to the lexical meanings of the joined partners: quality of an object can be expressed by ‘of’, ‘on’, ‘about’ prepositional phrases in ‘a book of English’, ‘a book on art’, a book about American history’, etc.

• TheConjunction, a word class that connects words/clauses into coordinative/subordinate structures bringing in certain semantic shades: girls and boys (copulative coordination), different but inte-resting (adversative coordination), on Sunday or on Monday (dis-junctive coordination), etc.

• TheInterjection, a word class that expresses the speaker’s emo-tion or attitude towards the message of the sentence: surprise by ‘Oh!’, ‘Why!’, etc. This word class stands somewhat apart from the previously described word classes as it refers to the modal aspect of the sentence expressed by the speaker outside the situation and is usually separated by a comma or an exclamatory mark: Oh! How nice to see you here! Oh, what a nice view! This may explain why words of this word class are considered independent elements of

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the sentence alongside the addresses and parentheses (Kobrina 2006:391), their function being reference not to any particular part of a sentence but to the sentence as a whole.

• TheArticle, a word somewhat different from the above-described word classes in number (only two articles – indefinite and definite) and meaning, i.e. the articles introduce a communicative mean-ing into the sentence, i.e. by using the chosen article the speaker refers to the definiteness or indefiniteness of the objects and substances referred to, which signals the speaker’s involvement in the situation or his/her general attitude towards it. In ‘The man was about twenty’ the noun in the sentence is definite for the speaker to characterize, while in ‘There was a man in the room’ the speaker only notes the presence of a man, not a woman, the situation for him/her being indefinite. The article is usually found with nouns or other words which get related to the noun in its meaning of sub-stantivity: the beautiful, the (two) people, the wounded (soldiers), the ‘to be here’, etc. or position in the sentence: Do you think the young have an easier life nowadays?

The knowledge of word classes and their basic characteristics will be of great use in studying the positional and semantic aspects of the constitu-ent parts in the simple English sentence.

3. Syntax is a part of grammar, which deals with ways of combining words into phrases in a language (Biber 2002: 460), i.e. combinations of individual lexemes arranged according to certain principles, which determine the length and meaning of the phrase through a proper choice of morphological partners.• Modern linguistics deals with various types of phrases distin-

guished by the presence of the headwordwhichis able to join or attract other words to specify its meaning and certain features im-portant to the speaker, etc. Thus, we use prepositional (at home), noun (a clever student), verb (to have a swim), adjective (very impor-

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tant) and adverb (very well) phrases, which are rarely found alone, only in informal contexts. All of them are usually constituent parts of the most important phrase – a sentence,arelativelycompleteandindependentcommunicativeunit,whichusually realizesaspeaker’scommunicativeintentionsandcontainsoneormoresubject-predicateunits,presentorimplied.

The headwords possess valency, a semantic and syntactic ability to at-tract certain modifiers, which disclose the various aspects of the head-word in the phrase: a first-year student, a man of importance, etc.

• The sentence differs from the other above-mentioned phrases in the typeofrelation between its basic constituents: all headword phrases are characterized by an attributive relationship (for nomi-nal headwords) and objectiverelationship (for the verb headword), which, in fact, reflect a certain dependence of the modifiers on the headword, which may be expanded or not: a man, an old man, an old man of 80, etc. The sentence usually takes a combination of the subject and predicate groups, which are interdependent, i.e. the presence of one predisposes the other – they may find expression in full and elliptical, extended or unextended syntactic structures: Children like playing games. (You) do it, please!

This type of relationship is called predicativerealized in a full predi-cative unit. Some linguists (Alexander 1998: 1, Biber 2002: 455) refer to a sentence as a ‘clause’ and the predicate group as a ‘verb group’. We hold that aclause is a dependent predicative unit, which is real-ized in a composite sentence; thus, we can speak of the main clause and subordinate clauses of time, condition, etc., which aim at enrich-ing the sentence through new added meanings and structures.

Another relationship observed in the sentence is accumulative, i.e. a way of expanding a sentence through adding adjuncts (ad-verbial modifiers and independent elements – parentheses, direct addresses and interjections) as well as coordinative structures (a few sentence units of the same value).

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4. Thestructureofpartsofthesentence.Since the simple sentence consists of certain constituent parts – nouns, verbs, adjectives, nu-merals, verbals and adverbs used separately or in phrases, it is useful to have an idea of their possible functions in the sentence and cor-responding structures. Thus, all of them may be simple and compos-ite:

Simple – consisting of one word, the headword of the structure clearly characterized by the performed function:

The man was old. (the subject) Composite:

• phrasal,able to join a few lexemes to disclose the features of the headword:

The old man was asleep.The windows of the room were new.

The attributes in the phrases may be used in pre-position (old) or post-position (of the room) in relation to the headword modified – ‘man’ and ‘windows’ respectively.

• complex, consisting of a nominal element (a noun, pronoun) and a non-finite form of a verb (an infinitive, a present or past participle):

We saw them { cross the street. (for a fact) crossing. (for process)

The complex structures are characterized by an indirect predica-tive relationship between the members, which makes it possible for it to be transformed into a clause in a complex sentence: We saw that they crossed/were crossing the street. The weather being cold, we stayed inside = As the weather was cold, we stayed inside.

• clausal, consisting of a dependent predicative unit as part of a sentence: The man who is sitting at the window is my cousin. Here the clause is a postpositive attribute to the headword ‘man’. This type of phrase is observed in complex sentences, which is not the point to be discussed here and now.

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symbolsinthetext

Ad – AdjunctAdj – AdjectiveAdv – Adverb AdvM – Adverbial ModifierAtt – AttributeC – ComplementCo – Objective ComplementCs – Subjective ComplementInf – Infinitive Mod – ModifierN – Noun (headword) Ns – Noun in the plural form N1’s – Noun-attribute in the genitive caseO – Object

Od – Direct Object Oi– Indirect ObjectOp – Operator (link verb)Oprep – Prepositional ObjectP – PredicatePc – Composite PredicatePs – Simple PredicatePrepPh – Prepositional phrasePr – PronounPrep – PrepositionQ – NumeralS – SubjectV – VerbV1 – Present ParticipleV2 – Past Participle

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II.struCturaltyPesofsentenCesAccording to their structure, sentences fall into the following groups:1. Simple or composite (compound and complex).2. Completeorincomplete(elliptical).3. Two-memberorone-member.These three classifications are based on different criteria of the sentence structure and reflect its different aspects.Sentences fall into simple or composite depending on the number of Subject-Predicate units in them. IfthereisoneSubject-Predicateunit,the sentence is simple. Two or more Subject-Predicate units makethe sentence composite. Subject-Predicate units that form composite sentences are called clauses:

I was just asking if you are ready to leave.It was the beginning of a friendship that would last his whole life.Don’t worry if you can’t work as quickly as the others.

two-memberandone-membersentences

The majority of simple English sentences are two-member sentences, as they contain the subject and the predicate, which are called the two main or principal positions in the sentence. The Subject-Predicate

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unitisthebasicpatternofatwo-memberEnglishsentence. There are several variations of the basic pattern, which depend mainly on the kind of the verb, which performs the function of the predicate in the sentence. The verb in the predicate position may be transitive, intransitive, ditransi-tive, an auxiliary or a link verb. Some most common variations of the basic pattern are the following:

Mary has arrived.Mary is a teacher.Mary is nice.Mary teaches English.Mary gives students her books.Mary lives in Glasgow.Students call Mary the best teacher.

One-member sentences have no Subject-Predicate unit, but, depending on which part of speech – noun or verb – is found in the principal part of the sentence, they may be of two types: nominal and verbal. Nominal sen-tences contain nouns in the principal part and serve as typical descriptions:

Autumn. Autumn flowers. Silence of an autumn morning.

Verbal sentences are the ones in which the main part is expressed by a non-finite form of the verb, which may be an infinitive or gerund. Verbal one-member sentences serve to describe different emotional percep-tions of reality:

To hear that!To believe such a story!Living under such awful conditions!

Both two-member and one-member sentences may be extended or unextended. An unextended two-member sentence contains two main positions of the basic pattern filled in with word forms:

John is funny.John has come.

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Certain verbs, such as transitive or ditransitive (like, give, buy, etc.), neces-sarily require certain words in the sentence, which are called obligatory extending elements, as the meaning without them is either incomplete or has no sense at all. Those words are called objects: I like Mary. The sen-tence without the object ‘Mary’ will have no sense, as the meaning of the verb ‘to like’ is incomplete. Mary gives students her books. The meaning of ‘gives her books’ acquires a different meaning when used without the indirect object ‘students’.An extended sentence may contain various optional (not obligatory) el-ements, which are attributes, adverbial modifiers, certain prepositional objects and independent elements:

John is very funny to me.My friend John came too early.Why, you are quite early!

Unextended one-member sentences consist of only one word:Midnight. Winter. Darkness.

Extended one-member sentences contain words modifying the principal part:

Summer midnight. Complete darkness. To think of such a lie!

elliptical(incomplete)sentences

All two-member sentences may be either complete or incomplete (ellipti-cal). Anellipticalsentenceisasentenceinwhichoneormoreword-formsintheprincipalpositionsareomitted.Ellipsis is structural, thus the informational point remains unchanged. This means that those words can be omitted because they have only grammatical, structural relevance, and do not carry any new relevant information (Kobrina 2004: 298).The basic structure of the English sentence is the Subject-Predicate unit, which represents the principal positions of the sentence, thus English el-

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liptical sentences are sentences without word-forms in the Subject and Predicate positions. There are several possibilities of omitting word-forms in the principal positions of the sentence:1. Ellipsis in the subject position: Feels boring. Haven’t heard anything about it. Looks like thunderstorm.2. Ellipsis in both the subject and operator position represented by an

auxiliary or link verb: Leaving so soon? Seen him much lately. Listening to me? A pleasure to see you. Busy tonight?

3. Ellipsis in the operator position - usually an auxiliary or link verb: Everything all right? You happy? You written that?4. Ellipsis in both the subject and predicate positions, typical of various

responses:Where are you going? - Devizes.Where do you want to go? - Golding’s Park. Where are you going? – Home.

5. Ellipsis in the predicate position, also peculiar to responses: Who sleeps here? – John. Who made the mess? – The children.

Practicesection

Exercise1.Analyze the following sentences structurally:

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1. A girl with dark shoulder-length hair. 2. Many local businesses offered to contribute to the school-rebuilding fund. 3. So Australia gets the gold and Britain the silver. 4. The reds and golds of the autumn foliage. 5. The river is quite deep here. 6. ‘Can you give me a hand moving this table?’ ‘Sure thing.’ 7. ‘Jo’s head of department now!’ ‘Really? She joined the com-pany a year ago!’ 8. John teaches English to adult learners. 9. A room with peeling wallpapers and bare floorboards. 10. ‘What’s his temperature?’ ‘Above 38oC.’ 11. What clauses are you taking this term? 12. ‘Hello, is that Robert Hoffman? My name is Richard Anderson.’ 13. It’s not easy to find work. 14. Don’t just stand there, do something! 15. Two large whiskies, please. 16. ‘Who is that?’ ‘Karen – don’t you recognize her?’ 17. ‘You’ll get your money back.’ ‘Yes, but when?’ 18. ‘What made you decide to go home? Couldn’t get used to the boat?’ 19.‘What is his name?’ ‘Bingley.’ ‘Is he married or single?’ ‘Oh, single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!’ 20. ‘When is your next ball to be, Lizzy?’ ‘Tomorrow fortnight.’ 21. The in-sipidity and yet the noise; the nothingness and yet the self-importance of all these people! 22. After sitting a little while with Jane, on Miss Bingley’s appearance and invitation, the mother and three daughters all attended her into the breakfast parlour. 23. ‘Ever in the party before?’ ‘In thirty-nine – in Ohio.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I did a job.’ ‘For United?’ ‘No, for the government.’

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III.CommunICatIvetyPesofsentenCesWhy do we need to use language? The basic concept is that language is for communication. People communicate with each other by various types of communicative acts: making statements, asking questions, gi-ving directives with the aim of getting the hearer to perform some ac-tion, making an offer or promise, thanking or giving an explanation. Thus, depending on the role of the sentence in the process of communication, sentences are generally divided into four types and termed as declara-tive, interrogative, imperativeandexclamatorysentences. Declara-tive sentences express statements, interrogative sentences are used for enquiring, imperatives imply commands and requests while exclamatory ones are employed to express emotional states in the form of exclama-tions:

There was a fight between two boys.Is the dinner nearly ready?When are you leaving?Eat your dinner.What a beautiful view!

Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary makers, but is

something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long genera-

tions of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.

Walt Whitman

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declarativesentences

Adeclarativesentencecontainsastatement,whichgivesthereaderorlistenersomeinformationaboutevents,actionsorattitudes,alsothoughtsandfeelings.Statements are the bulk of monological speech. A statement may become positive (affirmative) or negative:

There was silence in the room for a while.Not a sound was made.

Grammatically, in a declarative sentence the Subject and Predicate have direct word order. The sentence ends with a full stop in writing and a drop in pitch in speech. They are mostly two-member sentences, although they may be one-member sentences, as in:

A summer night.No sound.

In conversation, statements are often incomplete in their structure, espe-cially when they contain a response to a question that is asking for some information. The response then conveys the most important message.

Where are you going? Devizes. Where do you want to go? Golding’s Park. (Graham Greene)

Declarative sentences are polyfunctional communicatively. A statement, if spoken with a rising intonation, will be interpreted as a suggestive question:

It’s raining?If spoken with a high fall tone and coloured emotionally, it becomes an exclamation:

It’s raining!Such, so and other intensifying items like terribly also add exclamative force on a declarative sentence:

She’s such a bore!It’s terribly hot in here!

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It’s so tiring!It was extraordinary beautiful!

If the verb operator is a modal verb (e.g. can, shall, will, may, must, etc.), a declarative sentence can express an order (an imperative sentence):

Dogs must be kept on a lead.You will report to the Head Office tomorrow.

Interrogativesentences

Interrogative sentences constitute questions. Questions are typically sentences by which someone asks the hearer to give information. Ques-tions are common in conversation and they rarely occur in monological speech. Questions are either direct or indirect:

‘Where were you last weekend?’ he asked. (direct)He asked me where I was the previous weekend. (indirect)

Interrogative structures in English are of a few types: general questions, asking for an answer which is either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ (Can you swim? – Yes, I can. /No, I can’t.), special questions (also called pronominal or ‘wh’-questions), asking for specific information which is referred to by the wh-word or How adverb (Where do you come from? How are you today?), alternative,tag,rhetorical and suggestive questions each of them characterized by some structural and communicative modifications.

generalquestions/yes-noquestions

The common pattern is: Operator – Subject – bare Inf/N/Participles – Object (2 obj.) – Adverbials

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Generalquestionsarequestionselicitingtheanswer‘yes’or‘no’only. In general questions the speaker wants to know whether some event or phe-nomenon asked about exists or does not exist; thus accordingly the answer may be positive or negative. To make a statement into a yes-no question, simply put the operator that is, an auxiliary, modal, or link verb (do, can, is, etc.) before the subject. Such questions are characterized by a rising tone.

STATEMENT QUESTION She lives here. Does she live here? They will be coming. Will they be coming? They can dance well. Can they dance well? She’s a nice girl. Is she a nice girl?

General questions may be incomplete in their structure and reduced to two words only: Will you? Is she?A negative general question usually carries some emotional colouring of surprise or disappointment.

Haven’t you found another job yet?Though the typical use of general questions is that of getting an indica-tion of agreeing or disagreeing in the form of the answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’, many other social meanings are possible. Appropriate intonation will produce an exclamation, while attitudinal questions express a great variety of di-rectives or imperatives:

Isn’t it funny!Will you be quiet!

alternativequestions

Thecommonpatternis: General question + ‘or’ group involving an alter-native for any part of sentence to allow a choice: Do you like or dislike skiing in winter?

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‘Yes-no’ questions are limited: only one of two answers (positive or nega-tive) is possible. Another type of limited question is analternativeques-tion, which expects as an answer one of two or more alternativesmentionedinthequestion.

Shall we go by bus or by car?By car.Would you like tea, coffee, or juice?Tea, please.

Like a ‘yes-no’ question, it opens with an operator, but the suggestion of choice expressed by the disjunctive conjunction or makes the ‘yes-no’ answer impossible. The answer is to be found in the question itself, no other information is sought outside the one contained in the question. The expected answer will be similar to one of the interrogative structures, or part of it:

Do you want to stay for a while or would you like to go home?

- I’ll stay for a while.- Stay for a while.- I’ll stay.- Stay.

The conjunction may either link two homogenous parts of the sentence or two coordinate clauses. The intonation in alternative questions rises on each alternative except the last, on which it falls.There is a type of alternative question, which is like a ‘yes-no’ question in expecting a positive or negative answer:‘Yes-no’ Are you leaving?Alternative Are you leaving or not?Another type of an alternative question is more like a wh-question in form:

Where shall we go, to the theatre or to the cinema?Which do you prefer, train or bus?

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suggestivequestions

Thecommonpatternis: Declarative sentence +?

Suggestivequestions, a peculiar kind of ‘yes-no’ questions, are ques-tionsinstatement form. They are also called declarative questions (Ko-brina 2004: 303). The word order in such questions is that of a statement (subject-predicate unit) but the communicative function is that of a ques-tion due to the rising tone in speaking and a question mark in writing:

You got home safely then?You have had something to eat?

Communicatively, suggestive questions resemble tag questions as they are usually asked for the sake of confirmation. These questions are rather casual in tone. It is as if the speaker is assuming in advance that the an-swer is ‘yes’ when the form of the question is positive. With a negative, such questions assume the negative answer ‘no’:You know each other? (You might say this when you know people have met before.)The shops weren’t open? (You might say this on seeing someone come home with an empty shopping basket.)The answer may sometimes be unexpected through adding some per-sonal attitude towards the information in the question:

You like it?No, I find it disgusting.

Unlike ordinary ‘yes-no’ questions, suggestive questions may contain in-dependent elements, such as interjections, modal phrases, the conjunc-tion so, etc., as in:

Surely you are not guilty?So you’ve been here before?

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tag/disjunctivequestions

Thecommonpatternis: Declarative sentence + operator + pronoun Positive – negative Negative – positive

Tag questions are shortened ‘yes-no’ questions added to a state-ment. They are a word or a phrase such as ‘isn’t it?’ or ‘haven’t you?’ that you can add to a sentence to make a question (Macmillan 2007: 1216). They ask for confirmation of the truth of the statement, therefore they are sometimes called confirmative questions. Tags are characteristic of the spoken language. Structurally, tag questions are complex sentences, though communicatively they belong to the sphere of simple sentences. Tag questions consist of operator plus pronoun, with or without a nega-tive particle. The form of the operator in the tag depends on the prece-ding verb phrase, while the pronoun repeats or refers back to the subject of the statement:

The train has left, hasn’t it?The train left 10 minutes ago. Didn’t it? (The tag may also become a separate utterance.) She hasn’t come, has she?

The speaker does not expect the listener to give him some new informa-tion, just to share his view of some situation. The answer expected is “Yes” if the statement is positive, and ‘No’ if the statement is negative. (If the statement is positive, the tag-question is negative and vice versa.)She likes her job, doesn’t she? (‘I assume she likes her job. Am I right?)Nobody was watching us, were they? (I assume nobody was watching us. Am I right?) The most usual patterns of sentences with tag questions are as follows:Positivestatement–negativetag–positiveanswerYou’ve been here before, haven’t you? – Yes, I have.

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Negativestatement–positivetag–negativeanswerIt isn’t cold in here, is it? – No, it isn’t.The answer may be unexpected, as in: You didn’t hear that before, did you? – But I did. Jane told me about it.

There is one more sentence pattern with a tag question, which is less fre-quently used in English:Positivestatement–positivetagNegativestatement–negativetagPositive forms are more frequent than negative forms in both clauses. Negative tags after negative statements are usually found in dialects such as South Wales English. Tag questions of such patterns no longer ask for confirmation of information, they express a conclusion drawn by the speaker, and occasionally an attitude of irony, or sincere interest, or thoughtful consideration:

So you believe in democracy, do you? (So you really believe in democracy?)And you’ve lived here all your life, have you? (So you’ve lived here all your life for sure?)

Generally, the tag has a rising tone, though a falling intonation is also pos-sible. Thus there are four possibilities:Negativerisingtag: You’ve got a car, haven’t you?Negativefallingtag:You’ve got a car, haven’t you?Positiverisingtag: You haven’t got a car, have you?Positivefallingtag:You haven’t got a car, have you?

The rising tone indicates doubt, and expects the hearer to clarify whether the statement is true or not. It combines with either a positive or negative assumption expressed in the statement, to give the following meanings:Positiveassumption (in the statement) + doubt(in the tag)

You are British, aren’t you?

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Meaning: I think you are British. Am I right?Negativeassumption (in the statement) + doubt(in the tag)

You aren’t British, are you?Meaning: I don’t think you are British. Am I right?

The falling tone in the tag indicates a greater degree of certainty regard-ing the truth of the statement, and simply expects the hearer to agree with the statement.Positiveassumption (in the statement) + certainty(in the tag)

You are British, aren’t you?Negativeassumption (in the statement) + certainty(in the tag)

You aren’t British, are you?

Tag questions of the pattern ‘positive statement + positive tag’ or ‘nega-tive statement + negative tag’ typically have a rising tone in the tag, and the statement is often preceded by independent elements such as so, well, oh which indicate that the speaker is expressing a conclusion drawn from the situation or from what has been said before:

Oh, so you are the new assistant here, are you?So your sister is a teacher, is she?

specialquestions/Pronominalquestions/Wh-questions

Thecommonpatternis: Question word + general question structure

Pronominalquestionsbeginwitheitheraninterrogativepronounoradverb(wh-word),thefunctionofwhichistogetmoredetailedandexactinformationaboutsomeeventorphenomenonfamiliartothespeakerandlistener.The interrogative adverbs which function as question words are as follows: why, when, where, how and the archaic whence (= where from), whither

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(= where, where to), wherefore (= what for, why). Adverbial phrases such as how long, how often may also function as question words.

The interrogative pronouns which function as question words are as fol-lows: who (whom for object, whose for possessive) – for persons, what – for things, which – for persons or things, when a choice is involved. Thus, special questions are sometimes called pronominal or wh-questions.Question words may perform various syntactical functions in the sen-tence, depending on the piece of information the speaker wants to get from the listener:1. Who arrived first? (subject) – I did.2. What made you cry? (subject) – Your remark.3. What did you buy? (direct object) – Nothing.4. Who(m) have your friends invited? (direct object) – Only me.5. Who(m) did she send it to? (prepositional object) – To her cousin.6. What is he in the Council? (complement) – Head.7. What have they appointed him? (objective complement) – President of

the club.8. Whose essay was the best? (attribute) – Mine.9. Which song did you like most? (attribute) – The last one.10. When are they coming? (adverbial of time) – Next week.11. Where are you going? (adverbial of place) – To the shops.12. Why are you so upset? (adverbial of reason) – I failed an exam.13. How can I help you? (adverbial of manner) – Hold this bag, please. 14. How often do you go there? (adverbial of frequency) – Twice a month.

As can be seen from the above examples, word order in pronominal ques-tions differs according to whether the subject or some other element is being questioned. If it is the identity of the subject that is questioned (subject and attribute), the interrogative wh-word performs the function of the subject and the direct word order (subject + predicate) prevails (with no operator):

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Who wants a chocolate?What happened?Which team won the race?Whose bike was stolen?

This order of elements, which is typical of declarative sentences, is there-fore an exception to the usual word order prevailing for interrogative structures in English. If any other clause element is questioned (object, complement, adverbial), the word order in pronominal questions is char-acterized by inversion of the operator (auxiliary, link verb, modal) and the subject (indirect /inverted word order is used) (see examples 10 – 14).

In wh-questions the recipient can only be expressed by a prepositional object with to, and not by an indirect object:

Who did you give it to? – To my sister.Who are you writing this letter to? – To my relatives.

Who is used for both subject and object functions:Who wrote you a message? (subject) – My friend did.Who(m) did you write a message to? (object) – To my

friend.The syntactical function of the interrogative pronoun who is determined by what is questioned in the sentence, thus the word order differs (in sub-ject questions – direct word order, in object questions – indirect).

Sometimes a question word may be preceded by a preposition, though such structures are considered to be formal:

From whom did you get this report?To whom is he speaking?

In colloquial English, it is preferable to shift the preposition to the end of the question:

Who did you get this report from? Who(m) is he speaking to?

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When whom used as object introduces a question, who may replace it informally.

The wh-interrogative words sometimes combine with the word – ever, which acts as an intensifier expressing surprise or disbelief of the speaker:

Whoever would believe such a story?Wherever did you see that?How ever can you be telling such lies?

Only why does not take - ever.In questions beginning with why, informal usage permits the omission of the auxiliary (or a single form of be) and the subject.

Why so early? (for Why are you so early?)Why not go at once? (for Why shouldn’t we go at once?)

Pronominal questions are often used as short responses. They usually contain then either a question word alone or a question word followed by a preposition:

I must be going now. –Why?She thinks she can help us. – How?Let’s meet tomorrow? – Where?Open the box. –What with?Come to me. –What for?Let’s talk. –What about?

That kind of patterns are used when some information is missing in the sentence though being of some importance to the listener.The tone of pronominal questions is generally falling.

rhetoricalquestions

Both general and pronominal questions may serve as rhetorical ques-tions. Inrhetoricalquestionsastatementisdisguisedasaquestion. A

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positive rhetorical question is like a strong negative statement; a negative rhetorical question is like a strong positive statement (Leech 1975: 137):

What else could I do? (I could do nothing.)Do you expect me to wait for you here all day? (You can’t expect me to wait for you here all day.)What wouldn’t I do for an opportunity like that? (There is nothing I wouldn’t do for an opportunity like that.)Didn’t I tell you he would forget? (You know I told you he would forget about that .)Who doesn’t know that? (Everybody knows that.)

Rhetorical questions do not differ from standard questions in their form and intonation. The difference lies in their communicative aim. Such questions do not ask for any new information, since the answer is obvious from the context and unnecessary. They are used to attract the listener’s attention, thus, they are usually emotionally coloured. In their emotive content they are similar to exclamatory sentences. Since rhetorical ques-tions do not require an answer, they are not followed by a response:

What difference does it make?Rhetorical questions are characteristic of monological speech, especially oratory style and the language of poetry.

Imperativesentences

Imperativesentencesexpresscommandsthatconveythedesireofthespeakertomakesomeone,mostlythehearer,performsomeaction.

Open your books at page 85.Sit down. Stand up!

Though the communicative meaning of command is basic, imperatives are used more frequently in English for less mandatory purposes, such as re-quests,invitation,advice, etc. (Downing 1995: 198). In fact, the difference

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between commands and other directives is not clear cut; it depends on such factors as the relative authority of the speaker towards the addressee (listener) and whether the addressee is given the choice of performing the action or not: in the case of command there is no choice, whereas with the request there is. The social meaning of the imperative sentence has, therefore, to be worked out by the listener from the context:

Quick march! commandPlease close the door! requestHave a safe journey home. good wishVisit a doctor then! adviceSay that again and I won’t talk to you! threatTry one of these! offerLet’s go cycling! suggestionMind the gap! warningFeel free to take as many as you like. permissionCome on now, don’t cry! encouragement

In its most typical form a command is usually a sentence with an impera-tive verb (the base form of the verb) without endings for number and tense which has no subject. The reason for this is the most obvious recipi-ent of a command to carry out an action is the addressee, syntactically filled by the second person singular or plural you:

Come here.Shut the door, please.

The fact that you is the implicit subject of an imperative sentence can be proved by the addition of either a tag question or the pronoun yourself/yourselves:

Come here, will you?Enjoy yourselves!Help yourself to chocolate!

A negative command usually expresses prohibition, warning or persua-sion and is marked by the use of the auxiliary do + not:

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Don’t be watching television when I come back!Don’t do that by yourself!Don’t be late!

Emphatic negative commands/directives have the full form of not: Please do not remove this. (a notice on the board)There are no other auxiliary verbs in commands except do, which must occur in negative commands (see examples above) and may occur in pos-itive commands for the sake of emphasis:

Do sit down.Do be quiet.

Commands are generally characterized by the falling tone, although the rising tone may be used for softening their meaning. Some other ways of making a command less abrupt are the use the word please, addition of a tag question or a ‘yes-no’ question beginning with will or would:

Repeat the last sentence, please.Speak louder, will you?Will you help me?

Certain formulas of politeness either precede or follow the imperative verb in request.

1. Formulas of politeness before the verb:Please open the door.Will/Would you (please) open the door.

2. Formulas of politeness at the end of the sentence:Open the door, please.Open the door, will/would you.

3. Formulas of politeness split between the beginning and the end of the sentence:

Please open the door, will/would you. Will/Would you open the door, please.

In writing, as it can be seen from the examples above, commands are marked by a full stop or an exclamation mark.

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Though in the vast majority of imperative sentences the subject is only implied, the subject you does sometimes appear as the potential per-former of the action in commands when it is necessary to either specify the subject for the sake of contrast or to emphasize the speaker’s per-sonal attitude towards the situation:

You stay here until I return. (contrast)You go ahead and get the tickets! (emphasis)

An imperative structure with you is syntactically identical to a declara-tive one, and can only be distinguished from the latter in the spoken lan-guage by the stress on you. In a declarative sentence, the subject you is not stressed:

How do we get the tickets for the performance? You go and stand in the queue. (unstressed, declarative) What shall we do then? You go and stand in the queue while I find where to park the car. (stressed, imperative)

There is, however, a distinction between a declarative and imperative sentence with the verb to be:

You be the teacher and I be the student. (imperative)You are a teacher and I am a student. (declarative)

The third person subject (everybody, somebody, nobody) is used when the speaker wishes the action to be performed by a group of persons (every-body) or by a single unspecified person (somebody):

Somebody call emergency!Everybody sit down, please!Nobody move!

The third person command may also begin with a name of the person addressed:

Jane come with us and John stay here!If the action is to be carried out by the speaker, or by the speaker and some other participant (usually the addressee), the structures let me, let’s (let us) or let + a name followed by the bare infinitive of the notional verb are used:

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Let me see what we do next.Let’s try to start at 10.Let Jane and me open the discussion.

A command or request may be also addressed to the third person, sin-gular or plural, who is not even present. Commands and requests of such type are also formed with the help of let which is followed by a personal pronoun in the objective case (him, her, it, them) and the infinitive of the notional verb without the particle to:

Let her go alone.Let them try once again.Let John get the tickets.

Imperatives without let, with or without the subject, are negated by add-ing the auxiliary don’t in the initial position. This is applied even to the verb be:

Don’t make a noise.Don’t be noisy.

Someone/somebody is replaced by anyone/anybody or the negative no one/nobody:

Someone say something. Don’t anyone say anything.Nobody say anything.

Let imperatives are negated by the particle not or another negative word after the subject:

Let’s not leave now.Let no one say such a thing.Let’s not talk about it now.

However, the negation of let using don’t for the first person is gradually becoming more popular in informal spoken English:

Don’t let’s leave now.Don’t let’s talk about it.

Some commands are verbless, that is without an imperative verb:Silence! Faster!

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Attentive, please.To the left! Not so fast! No smoking! Out with it!

exclamatorysentences

Declarative and interrogative sentences are used as means of giving and receiving information. But language is more than this: it is com-munication between people. It often expresses the emotions and at-titudes of the speaker and s/he often uses it to influence the attitudes and behaviour of the hearer. An exclamation is a type of sentence,whichisusedtoexpressthespeaker’sfeelingorattitudetowardsreality.The main distinctive feature of this communicative type of sen-tence is its specific intonation. Structurally, exclamatory sentences may be formed on a variety of patterns. The most typical pattern is that ex-clamations begin with what as determiner in noun phrases and how as a degree word with adjectives or adverbs. An exclamatory sentence has a Subject-Predicate structure; the order of the Subject and the Predicate verb (or the operator) is not inverted. Thus, to form an exclamation, put the element of the sentence containing what or how at the front of the sentence, as with wh-questions, but do not alter the order of Subject and Predicate:

He cooked a delicious dinner. (SPO)What a delicious dinner he cooked! (OSP)

Your daughter is a clever girl. (SPC)What a clever girl your daughter is! (CSP)

He tells such awful lies. (SPO)What awful lies he tells! (OSP)

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She sings beautifully. (SPAd)How beautifully she sings! (AdSP)

Exclamations are often shortened to a noun or adjectival phrase:What a girl! (What a girl she is!)How funny! (How funny it is!)What a coincidence! (What a coincidence it is!)How dreary! (How dreary it is!)

Besides the two patterns mentioned above, an exclamation may be formed on the pattern of statements or commands:

You do look a picture of despair! (statement)There’s the plane now! (statement)Hurry up! (command)

‘Yes-no’ questions also function as exclamations owing to the falling tone in speaking and an exclamation mark in writing. The most common pat-tern has a negative question with the operator heavily stressed:

Isn’t she beautiful!Doesn’t he sing well!Wasn’t it a good film!

A positive ‘yes-no’ question has not only the falling tone but also both the operator and the subject stressed:

He said he knew the truth. Did he surprise me! (How he sur- prised me!)

Am I bored! (I am very bored!)

Though rarely, but with an exclamation mark at the end, pseudo-subordi-nate clauses introduced by the conjunction if and that serve as exclama-tions:

If only I were there now!That this should be the truth!

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One-member sentences conveying the signals of alarm such as Help! Fire! may also serve as exclamatory sentences in the process of communica-tion.

Sometimes an infinitive is used as the verb in an exclamation:What a high price to pay for such a thing!How thoughtful of them to send a letter of apology!

A sentence with such instead of what may also have the effect of an ex-clamatory sentence:

She has such beautiful hair!She has such beautiful eyes!She has such a beautiful figure!

Appropriate intonation can be imposed on any type of unit, including a single word, to express an exclamation:

Splendid! Shame! Excellent!Goal! Good! Scissors!

Practicesection

Exercise1.Define the following sentences according to their communi-cative purpose:

1. No politics at the dinner table, please. 2. Obviously, I feel very disap-pointed at not getting the job. 3. She had always dreamed of going to Africa. 4. Do you know any good party games? 5. ‘Let’s just sit here for a minute.’ ‘Ok, if you like.’ 6. My God, you scared me! 7. Goodness gracious me! What do you mean? 8. Can you give me a hand with these boxes? 9. ‘There! I heard it again!’ ‘ There’s nothing there – you’re just imagining things!’ 10. Radio and television have had an enormous effect on people’s

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lives. 11. Stop acting silly! 12. That’s always the way, isn’t it? 13. ‘What is his name?’ ‘Bingley.’ ‘Is he married or single?’ ‘Oh, single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!’ 14. ‘You saw me dance at Meryton, Sir?’ 15. ‘You have chosen a house in town?’ 16. ‘This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed!’ said the woman. 17. She is a great reader and has no pleasure in anything else. 18. ‘How I long to see her again!’ 19. ‘You begin to comprehend me, do you?’ 20. ‘And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice?’

Exercise2.Define the types of questions:

1. They don’t believe us, do they? 2. Which colour do you want – red, green, yellow, or blue? 3. Are you ready to order? 4. What was the weather like? 5. How did you like Paris? 6. When should I end a letter with ‘Yours sincerely’? 7. Did you enjoy the party? 8. Do you drive? 9. Who’s going to drive? 10. Who did you give the money to? 11. You teach English, don’t you? 12. When did the trouble start? 13. He did well, didn’t he? 14. Where shall I start? 15. Why won’t you answer my question? 16. You don’t care whether he lives or dies, do you? 17. Will you hurry up? I haven’t got all day!

Exercise3.Make exclamatory sentences from the sentences given be-low:

1. The drink has a very strong flavour of citrus fruit. 2. Steve speaks fluent Japanese. 3. He speaks English fluently. 4. Francine was a very good cook. 5. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. 6. She gave us a bright-eyed, hopeful look. 7. He’s always so organized. 8.Archie was shy and awkward. 9. It was a beautiful sunny day. 10. Their plan worked brilliantly.

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Iv.syntaCtICCharaCterIstICsofasImPleenglIshsentenCeThe object of the study is a simple English sentence, an independent group of words with one predicative unit, which consists of the Subject and Predicate alone or extended by individual lexemes or phrases. It may be analyzed at two levels: sentence and phrase (Kobrina 2006: 322).1. A full two-member sentence level analysis makes it possible to es-

tablish a number of syntactic patterns, which will facilitate the under-standing of the simple sentence structure. Modern linguistics has ac-cepted the following sentence patterns: a) Simpleorkernel: SP (In some linguistic works the kernel pattern

is marked SV (Subject Verb). We hold that the‘Subject and Predi-cate’ terms belong to one plane – sentence parts and suit better to our purpose: Dogs bark. This pattern may have the sub patterns: SOpCs

SOpN/Adj She is a student /clever.

SOpCs

SOpV She must run.

Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows

Where noun and verb and participle grows.

Dryden

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b)Expanded:through the employment of the Object, Attributes and Adverbials on the one hand and Adjuncts proper on the other.

• SPOd: He sees a dog.• SPOprep: He looked at us.• SPOiOd: He gave me a book.• SPOdOprep: He gave the book to Ann.• SPAttOd: She has bought a new book.• SPAdv: She sleeps here/ in a tent. • SPOdAdv: They enjoy traveling in summer.• SAdvPOdAdv: They never speak English here.

Theadjuncts are expressed by a) modal words and interjections – pa-rentheses that introduce the speaker’s attitude (doubt, surprise, etc.) to-wards the information or message of the sentence , b) direct addresses and c) adverbial modifiers:

• AdSPOd: Perhaps she’ll do it.• AdPSPOi: Ann, will you help me today?

The patterns are mostly expanded by way of introducing a number of ad-juncts and adverbials, which mostly depends on the speaker’s intention, i.e. what amount of message is conveyed to the communication partner.Another part of the sentence that hasn’t been included into the estab-lished patterns is the Attribute, a word or phrase employed to point out features of nominal word class representatives valid in the context; the presence of the attributes is optional,i.e.their use is determined by the situation of the utterance, which depends on the communicative aim of the speaker, as seen from the scheme below:

S C O Ad

Attribute

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An old man of eighty wanted to talk to his neighbour’s children last weekOur friends are teachers of English.

Thus, we see how ingenious language is in providing the speakers with a great variety of simple and complex sentence patterns to enable them to convey the intended message as clearly as possible.The expansion of the sentence occurs through a) accumulation of ele-ments of sentence, i.e. a most general way of adding adjuncts – paren-theses, addresses and adverbials - to realize the speaker’s communication purposes at the sentence level:

Perhaps they will arrive tomorrow

And through b)coordination, an ability of a part of sentence to join ele-ments of equal importance in meaning and function, at the part of sen-tence level: Both the children and the adults enjoyed the concert. They are also called homogenous parts of sentence joined syndetically (with the help of conjunctions), asyndetically (by commas only) or both at the same time: They bought some paper, a few books and a newspaper and left.c) ability of sentence parts to realize their potential valency: transitive verbs always need a direct object (He saw a book on the table.) – an objec-tive relationship established between the Ps and Od/i/prep; the valency of Nominal parts of the sentence (N, Pr, Adj) is realized through the at-tributive relationship (a white bird).

The syntactic-semantic structure of sentence may be presented in the fol-lowing way :

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Figure1.Distribution of Attributes in a sentence

thesubject:types,kindsandwaysofexpression

TheSubject,apartofsentencethatintroducestheperformerofanaction or state expressed by the Predicate, is usually studied from structural, semantic and syntactic points of view.

I. Structurally, the Subjects are classified intosimpleandexpanded(phrasalandcomplex).

1)SimpleSubject: The kitten was white and black.We consider the article to be part of a simple part of sentence (S, C, O, Ad) because it belongs to another plane of sentence – communicative, and its use is determined by the speaker’s intention to introduce a definite or indefinite reality: Babies are always a pleasure to see. (No article is used with Ns in a general sense).

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2) ExpandedSubject: The lovely kitten was white and black.Phrasal, with attributes used prepositionally, postpositionally or onbothsidesoftheheadwordnoun.

• Theprepositionalextension The young man/That (young) man decided to use it himself.

The established Subject patterns here are:a) AttrN – PrN, AdjN, N1’sN, N1N, V1,2Nb) 2AttrN – PrAdjN, Adj(V1)/AdjN: Those lovely flowers… The approach-

ing young man… The handsome young man… c) 3AttrN – PrAdjAdjN, PrN’sAdjN: Those green old gloves… Our neigh-

bours’ lovely lawns…There may occur four or even five prepositive attributes, however, those subjects are quite rare even in written language. The prepositive expan-sion in the Subject is mostly accumulative and sometimes phrasal and accumulative (Our neighbours’ lovely lawns…)As adjectives, mostly preferred prepositive attributes, may refer to differ-ent semantic shades and aspects of the headword, we would like to ac-quaint you with a table (Close 1979: 159), which illustrates the relationship between the position of the attribute and its semantics:

Table1.Order of adjectives before a noun

Epithet Size Shape Age Colour Origin Sub-stance

Pur-pose

N

adaring young mana small round oak tablea dirty old brown coata charm-ing

French writing desk

a large green Chi-nese

carpet

a fa-mous

Ger-man

medi-cal

school

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We think that ‘Epithet’ refers to the evaluative subjective meaning of an adjective, positive or negative, and ‘Gerund’ ,an –ing form or an adjective, points to the purpose of the headword (a desk for writing, a school for preparing doctors or nurses).

• The postpositional extension (The purpose of the article was…) involves the following patterns:a) NPrepPh, NInf(Ph): The idea of going home was wonderful. The suggestion to give it another thought was accepted

with pleasure.b) NAdj /V1, 2/Ph: The boy, red in face having run all the way, couldn’t say a

word.c) NAdv: The children over there were having a good time.

The postpositive attribute is usually phrasal, individual lexemes occurring rather rarely.

• The established patterns of theboth-sidedexpansion are as fol-lows: AdjNPrepPh, PrAdj/QNPrepPh, PrNPrepPh, PrAdjNPrepPh:

Those shabby buildings in the very center needed urgent repair. This house of yours must be really big. The new houses in our village were built about five years ago.

The attributive expansion in the Subject may be characterized by some other peculiarities:

• The latest tendency points to a wide use of composite adjectives, compositional phrases (Kobrina 2006:372), i.e. attributes that are composed of two or more roots (Adv + N, V2 + N, etc.) that replace prepositional phrases: a dirty-collar, unbrushed coat man = a man with a dirty collar and unbrushed coat. The long-looked-for hours = The

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hours which were looked for long. (Ibid.) Thus, composite attributes present a great amount of information in a compressed form.

• The attributes may be employed close to the headword: a brown blackboard or detached, loosely connected with the headword and separated by commas: Surprised, the man couldn’t say a word.

• Nouns serving as attributes are sometimes called apposition: Aunt Ann decided to have a party on Friday. The presence of appositive at-tributes is determined by a rich intrinsic nature of nouns, common and proper, which makes it possible to name one and the same en-tity of reality giving it different names of similar quality, that is why it is difficult to decide which noun is in apposition: Aunt whose name is Ann or Ann who is my aunt. It has been accepted so far that common nouns denoting family, social relationships, ranks and titles serve as appositive attributes to proper nouns: Doctor Brown, General Brown, etc. However, if the noun, common or proper, is used in a phrase, it serves as apposition: The speaker, a Mrs. Brown from Bedford, at-tracted everyone’s attention by… Sometimes, appositive nouns may be joined by means of prepositions: the town of Klaipėda.

3) ComplexSubject,consisting of a nominal part (a noun in the com-mon case or a personal pronoun) followed by a non-finite form of the verb (infinitives, present or past participles): For him to give up smoking was a challenge. In the Complex Subject the prepositional personal pronoun in the objective form is followed by an infinitival phrase in-troducing an indirect predicative relationship, i.e. it stands for a full predicative unit in a clause form (= The fact that he should give up smoking was…)

II.Semantically,the Subjects are classified into notional and formal.

1) TheNotionalSubject refers to a person, object, idea, situation, etc., whose action or state is expressed by the Predicate: They/The students did well at the exam yesterday. The farmers’ houses had new roofs.

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This Subject is expressed by:a) nouns in the common or genitive case:

The baker was a pleasant old man.The baker’s was round the corner. (=the baker’s shop)

The absolute use of the genitive case is mostly observed in informal speech.b) pronouns of various kinds and forms: He is coming at 5 p.m. Hers was the newest book. Something must be done about it. This is the last straw. Who said it? Any of them can do it c) numerals, both cardinal and ordinal, alone or in a phrase: Five will do. The first of the group will hand in the list.d) non-finite verbal forms, alone or in phrase: To live is to learn. Working hard is a must here. For them to ask questions was quite natural.e) quotations: The ‘why’ of things was his hobby. ‘And’ is a copulative conjunction. A ten is an excellent mark for the paper.f) substantivized adjectives, participles or numerals: I don’t see why the many (=the majority) should suffer. The wounded were seen everywhere.The Notional Subject can be expressed in accordance with the commu-nication needs, intentions as well as the type of noun, its ability to realize its lexical and syntactic valencies.

2) TheFormalSubject in a simple English sentence is represented by two lexemes – ‘it’ and ‘there’. They always take the first position in the

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sentence to introduce the real Subject, which is outside the sentence, not important enough or necessary to be introduced in the sentence as in: It is cold (=The weather is cold, I am cold) or follows the Predicate: It is interesting to listen to him. There was a book in his hand.

The Formal ‘it’ Subject is of different kinds:• Personal, when ‘it’ replaces a previously introduced noun:

Take the book, please. It is very interesting.• Impersonal, when ‘it’ refers to time, distance, condition or state:

It is warm in summer here.It was 5 p.m. /winter.It is not far from here.

The impersonal formal Subject may also be expressed by some personal and indefinite pronouns – you, they, and one: You never know. They say they like it. One should trust the family.All the words used as impersonal Subjects refer to the message of sen-tence in a most general way, the Lithuanian form being general as well (Niekada nežinai; Sakoma... Reikėtų...)

• Introductory, when ‘it’ refers to the real meaningful Subject fol-lowing the Predicate:

It is important to do it in time. It is a pleasure seeing you here.

The sentence may be transformed into ‘To do it in time is important’. It may be that the ‘it’ sentence is determined by the lexical character of the Sub-ject Complement ‘important’, as well as ‘necessary’, ‘interesting’, ‘useful’, etc.A variation of the formal ‘it’ sentences is emphatic‘it’ introduced in com-plex sentences: It was he who did it.The formal ‘there’ simple sentences are introduced by the natural ad-verb ‘there’, which in its weakened meaning is capable of expressing a

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spatial relationship (place or time) between the real Notional Subject and the Simple Predicate: There is a cup/some bread on the table. There were cups on the table. There is still some time left. There is a time and place for everything under the sun.‘There’ sentences are also called existential sentences, which state that something (a cup, some bread, some time) is found somewhere (on the table, at our disposal) with the aim of drawing the listener’s attention to some new information or message. The latter is usually expressed by a nominal element with the indefinite article for a singular notion or some indefinite pronoun as well as the zero article for uncountable nouns or countables in the plural. The notional Subject is usually expressed by nouns, pronouns and gerunds alone or in a phrase: There was no (more) talking of the Browns that night.The formal ‘there’ may be followed not only by the verb ‘to be’ but also by other verbs adding some shade of action meaning to the existence of the notional Subject: There appeared/came in a pretty girl in a long dress.It is advisable to note the translation of the formal ‘there’ sentences into Lithuanian, i.e. ‘there’ is not translated – Pasirodė/įėjo gražutė mergaitė ilga suknele. If the ‘there’ sentence has an adverbial of place, its Lithuanian equivalent replaces ‘there’: There were children in the yard. Kieme buvo vaikų.This pattern of translation is determined by the Lithuanian manner of introducing new information – the final position in the sentence, with a shift of the definite place indication to the beginning of the sentence.

III.Syntactically,the Subject is placed before the Predicate. Then it is ac-tive and important and requires the active verb forms: The woman came in and sat down. However, sometimes, The Subject takes a final or post-

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predicate position when the first pre-predicate position is occupied by the Direct Object for some reason, realization of the action: The letter has already been written (by the secretary). The real active Subject may not be mentioned. In such sentences the Predicate is always passive.

thePredicate

The Subject of a sentence is usually followed by a part of sentence called the Predicate, whose function is to characterize the Subject, i.e. toindicateitsactivity/non-activity,thetypeofprocessoractionper-formedortosupplyanotherkindofinformationrelatedtotheSub-ject.

The girl is speaking English (active)The letter was written in the morning (passive)She has told us many interesting stories (completed past repeated actions)They are doctors are young/20/tired, etc. (a certain state of the Subject: occupation, age, condition, etc.)

The Predicate is analysed from the structural-semantic point of view as Simple and Composite/Compound depending on the form of the Verb or relations between the verbs in the group of verbs.

1) TheSimplePredicate presents one idea of action and can be of three types:• Simple synthetic: Dogs bark. She liked sweets in childhood. – the

Predicate is represented by an Indefinite Tense form (present or past).

• Simpleanalytical: Who is speaking now? She has bought two Eng-lish books today.

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The Predicates consist of the auxiliary verbs ‘is’ and ‘has’ followed by the present and past participles respectively, to denote a present continu-ous action in the first example and a completed past action in the sec-ond. This type of Predicate is typical of actions accompanied by various aspects: continuity, time correlation and completion for Perfect tense forms, repetition (for ‘used to do’), etc.

• Simplephraseological: They have already made use of the know-ledge. Here the phrase ‘to make use of’ is an idiomatic replacement of the verb ‘use’. It is of interest to note that the idiomatic verb phrase includes a converted noun, cf. ‘use’, a noun. Also, She had a good time at the party = She spent the time at the party well. The accompanying adjective ‘good’ is replaced by the adverb ‘well’ to retain the meaning.

2) TheCompositePredicates consist of two elements – the Operator/link verb and the Complement, which denote two or more meanings within the Predicate, on the one hand, and determine the size of the Composite Predicate.a) If the Complement is a nominal/substantival element, i.e. a noun,

pronoun, adjective, numeral, participle or gerund, the Predicate is CompoundNominal:

The man is { an engineer. young/20. wounded. The book is { his new. His hobby is swimming.

In all such cases the Complement characterizes the Subject as to its spe-ciality, age, state, belonging or another specification, which is the reason

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why it is called the Subjective Complement. It is always preceded by an Operator of being (be) or becoming (become, turn, grow, get):

He { is a teacher. became a teacher at 21. grew tired after the day’s work. turned red at once.

They are students.It’s worth mentioning that the Subjective Complement prefers the in-definite article when used in the singular in a general sense (see the ex-amples above) and takes no article when in the plural: They are children. The Subject itself usually takes the definite article being definite in the situation, with its Complement – indefinite, i.e. introducing new addi-tional information. A variation of the Composite Nominal Predicate is the DoublePredicate, which consists of a notional verb performing the function of the Operator and the Subjective Complement, an adjective. The sentence:The sun rose red. may split into:

The sun rose (early).The sun (was) red.

Sentences with the Double Predicate are not very frequent in English be-cause of an unusually dense meaning in a comparatively short commu-nicative unit.

b) If the Subjective Complement is a verbal element, i.e. the infinitive, the Predicate is Verbal:

We can speak English well.The Composite Verbal Predicates fall into four groups, the criterion being the meaning of the Operator.

• TheCompositeVerbalModalPredicate has an Operator, a link verb, expressed by a modal verb (can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, dare, needn’t) or its equivalents (to be able, to be

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permitted/allowed, to be (to), to have (to)) and an infinitive, bare or full.

She could write better. (supposition, ability)We must/ have to use it today. (obligation)Ben shall pay the bill. (promise)I will help you. (volition)She was able to make progress last term. (past ability)I am to meet them today. (planned arrangement)

• TheCompositeVerbalPhasalPredicate has an Operator – a verb that denotes the beginning, middle and/or end of phases of the action denoted:

She {began to read at once. continued to read after me.

finished to read it.

Nowadays, this kind of Predicate is being interpreted in a different way, i.e. the link verb of the phase is turning into an independent notional verb (a Simple Predicate) followed by a gerund (a Direct Object):

She began reading at once. continued finished

This tendency may be explained by the semantics of both the Operators and the Complement, i.e. the phasal verbs are related to the process of the action expressed by the gerund, the infinitive referring to the fact that it usually has no phases. Besides, the verbs ‘continue’ and ‘finish’ refer to the middle or final stages of the process which can hardly introduce a fact; the verbs are also followed by nouns: She continued (with) her studies for another year. I’ve nearly finished my work.

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• The Composite Verbal Predicate of Double Orientation in-cludes an analytical passive Operator followed by the Subjective Complement:

They are said to arrive in the afternoon. The Operator `are said’ does not refer to the Subject of the sentence but to someone outside the sentence, who passed on the information about their arriving. ‘Are said’ may be replaced by ‘are thought (expected) supposed/like-ly’, etc. The characteristic (action) of the Subject is revealed in the Complement (they will arrive).

• The Mixed Predicate usually combines the above – mentioned kinds of the Predicates finding expression in:

TheCompositeModalNominalPredicate: That was to be the way of getting information.

TheCompositePhasalNominalPredicate: I began to feel rather hungry. (Du Maurier)

TheCompositeModalPhasalPredicate: I had to begin living all over again. (Du Maurier)

theobject

The semantics of an English verb usually determines the size of the Predi-cate, i.e. if the Predicate verb is intransitive, it performs the function alone, without additional elements: ‘Run’ in: She is running. However, there are verbs, which need a substantival or nominal element to complete their meaning: ‘To find’ in: I found the book on the windowsill. Thepartofsen-tencewhichisnecessarytorealizethesemanticvalencyofthePredi-cateverbiscalledTheObject, an important member of the Predicate group.The Object in the sentence may be characterized from the structural and semantic points of view.

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I.Structurally,theObjectsare:1)Simple, expressed by a word form – a noun, pronoun, substantivized

adjective or participle, infinitive, gerund, quotation, etc. I see a book. Take it, please. We should think of the disabled more. He is fond of reading. He called “Hsst!” several times. (Galsworthy)

2) Phrasal, expressed by a group of words with a headword and its mo-difiers: He held back the flap of the tent. This exercise helps to flatten a flabby stomach.

3) Complex, consisting of a nominal element (a noun, pronoun, sub-stantivized adjective, etc.) followed by an adjective, infinitive or par-ticiple – an Objective Complement: We saw children cross/ crossing the street. Ann wanted her brother to help her.

Note 1: In the first example the bare infinitive ‘cross’ refers to the fact (Lithuanian: Matėme, kad vaikai perėjo gatvę.) and the present participle ‘crossing’ points to the process of the action (Lithuanian: Matėme, kaip vaikai ėjo per gatvę./Matėme vaikus, einančius per gatvę.). Note 2: The use of a full or bare infinitive in the Complex Object is deter-mined by the lexical character of the preceding Predicate verb, i.e. if the verb denotes mental states (like, think, want, expect), a full infinitive is employed: I expect you to help them when in need. If the verb refers to physical conditions, a bare infinitive is observed: I felt (heard) someone come behind me.The verbs ‘let’ and ‘make’ in the active form also require a bare infinitive. This may be explained by a certain shade of physical condition in their meanings (Lith. Leisti, priversti)

Let me read it, please.She made me learn the poem by heart.

But the passive form of ‘make’ is followed by the full form of the infinitive:I was made to learn it by heart.

4) Clausal, expressed by a clause:

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I wonder why she came earlier.

So far, all the mentioned objects were notional, i.e. linguistic units with a meaning of their own. However, English sentences may have formal Ob-ject – a complex ‘it’ object followed by a phrase or clause to explain it:

He made it a point to save so much every week. (London)

II. Semanticallyandsyntactically, the Objects of the sentence are di-vided into the following groups:

1) The Direct Object, whose use is determined by the meaning and nature of the preceding Predicate verb, i.e. transitive verbs (to see, to have, to write, etc.) need an Object to complete its meaning and make the sentence understandable:

They saw five books on the table.Note: sometimes, the verb ‘see’ may not need an Object, and then it means ‘understand’:

- Excuse me, I can’t go with you. I am to meet my sister at the station.

- Oh! I can see your point. We’ll go there next week.A specific Object – theCognateObject, whose lexical meaning echoes the meaning of the Predicate verb, even sometimes with the same root, may also represent the Direct Object: The couple lived a long and happy life. The use of the Cognate Object is marked stylistically, in everyday use it is replaced by ‘The couple lived long and happily.’

2)TheIndirectObject, whose meaning is that of the addressee and that usually precedes the Direct Object. If it follows the Direct Object, it usually takes the prepositions ‘to’ and ‘for’, the latter introducing an additional meaning of purpose expressed by an infinitive:

Bring me (Oi) a book (Od), please.

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Bring a book (Od) to me (Oi)./Bring a book (Od) for me (Oi) to read.3) TheprepositionalObject is always introduced by a certain preposi-

tion, which points to the meaning of the Object:The hall was decorated with fresh flowers.The book was written by Ch Dickens.

TheDirectandPrepositionalObjectsmaybeofdifferentstructure:Simple – I have a cat. Give me a book.Phrasal – I have a lovely cat. Give your sister the new newspaper.Complex – I saw a child playing in the yard. Buy a toy for the child to play with.Clausal – I know that there are seven virtues. Have you heard of what they did last week?

The Indirect Object is usually simple when in pre-position and phrasal, complex or clausal when following the Direct Object.

theadjuncts

The Adjuncts are members of a sentence, which expand the sentence be-side the Subject and Predicate groups. They are of two kinds: theAdver-bial Modifiers and theIndependentElements.

I. The Adverbial Modifier is a part of sentence, which is introduced inthesentencetoindicatethespatial–timeandplace–charac-teristicsofthedescribed situation,aswellasthecircumstantialcharacteristicsofthePredicateVerb.Semantically, the English sentence may include:1) Time Adverbials, which refer to the temporal characteristics of

the situation described. They are usually expressed by adverbs of time (now, today, etc.), participles, participial complexes, noun or gerundial phrases:

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We are going to do it now.While reading, she made long pauses.The letter written, I felt relieved.After lessons, she went home.Before opening the book, she glanced at me.

2) Placeordirectionadverbials, usually employed to indicate the local-ity of the action expressed by the Predicate verb or its direction:

We looked for them everywhere.They disappeared behind the trees.

3) Frequencyadverbials, usually placed before the main Predicate verb form if expressed by a word form and at the end of the sentence if by a phrase:

She will often ask me questions about anything.Last month I saw them very frequently.

4) Adverbialsofmanner, which usually define the way the action of the Predicate verb is performed and are placed at the end of the sentence in the form of an adverb of manner or a prepositional phrase:

She spoke very slowly.She spoke without looking at me/with her eyes down.

5) Adverbialsofattendantcircumstances, which involve another ac-tion verb in the form of the Present Participle, beside the action ex-pressed by the Predicate:

The girls came into the room, trying to look brave. Another action (of trying) may be transformed into an accompany-

ing action (= and tried…).6) Adverbials of degree and measure, found within the composite

nominal Predicate to define the ComplementIt is rather good.

or after the Simple Predicate: It weighed about 20 kilos.

7) Causeadverbials, mostly expressed by participial complexes separa-ted from the rest of the sentence by commas:

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Having run around all day, she was dead tired.8) Resultorconsequenceadverbials, usually determined by the use of

‘too’ and ‘enough’ before the Subjective Complement:She is too young to start school.

9) Adverbials of condition, usually expressed by prepositional phras-es:

With her parents’ help, Ann would have achieved much more.She would have been a success, but for her lack of respon-sibility.

They may be transformed or expanded into conditional clauses, cf. If her parents had helped her,…

10)Adverbials of comparison, characterized by the presence of such conjunctions and prepositions as ‘like’, ‘as’, ‘as though’, ‘as if’, ‘then’.

Like her sister, Ann was interested in painting.She was as white as a paper.She stood as if frightened.She speaks English better than Russian.

11)Adverbialsofconcession, also introduced by the semantically deter-mining conjunctions ‘though’, ‘although’, ‘notwithstanding’:

Though tired, she decided to help us.12)Adverbialsofpurpose are mostly expressed by infinitive phrases and

‘for’ complexes:She stopped to say good-bye.She stopped for me to pass.

Structurally, adverbial modifiers may be:Simple, expressed by one word form:

Tomorrow it will be cool and cloudy everywhere.Phrasal, expressed by a group of word with the headword – an

adverb, a noun, a participle or a gerund:

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With our help, the children will manage it.Complex,expressed by a nominal element and a verbal – an in-

finitive, participle or gerund: They stopped for us to pick some flowers.

theIndependentelementsofthesentence

The independent elements of the sentence are introduced to refer to the speaker’s attitude towards the information expressed in the sentence. They are:1) Directaddresses, represented by word forms or phrases:

Julia, would you tell me the time, please? Dear colleagues, what do we do now?

2) Interjections,to express the speaker’s feeling (oh, good heavens, eh, etc.):

Oh, why did you do it? Why, what’s the matter?

3) Parentheses which refer to the speaker’s point of view towards the expressed by modal word (indeed, certainly, truly, in fact, possibly, per-haps, obviously, etc.):

Evidently, they were too tired to do it.• Adverbs – connectives (firstly, secondly, finally, consequently, be-

sides, nevertheless, yet, still, therefore, etc.): I don’t want to go shopping. Besides, I haven’t got any money.

• Prepositionalphrases (in a word, in my opinion, in short, on the one hand, at least, etc.):

People don’t take enough exercise, in my opinion. • Infinitive and participle phrases (to tell the truth, to begin with,

generally speaking, strictly speaking, etc.): To tell you the truth, I’m completely bored.

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The independent elements of the sentence are usually detached from the rest of the sentence and separated from it by commas or dashes.

summary:Waysofexpandinganenglishsentence

A simple nuclear English sentence (SP) may be expanded in the following ways:1) The nominal parts of sentence are expanded by attribution, i.e. add-

ing attributes to the headword in preposition, postposition or in both positions at the same time.

My friend is an experienced teacher.Feelings of resentment can all too easily turn to anger.The Great Wall is the largest structure on earth.

2) The verbal parts of sentence usually need objectsto complete their lexical meaning of transitivity.

We transmit our values to our children. Here the Predicate verb is followed by the Direct and Indirect Preposi-tional Objects to fully realize its meaning.

Reading detectives is his favourite pastime.The Direct object can also follow the Gerund ‘reading’, with the root – a transitive verb.3)Accumulationin a sentence is observed in three positions:

• Within nominal groups with an attributive relationship between the headword and its attributes, when the latter is represented by modifiers of a different nature;

This new table is very expensive.Here the headword ‘table’ is preceded by a qualitative adjective and a determiner, usually a demonstrative pronoun or an article.

• Within a sentence, with a number of adverbial modifiers intro-duced for various purposes:

In September, all children usually start classes at school.

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• Within any part of sentence through coordination to introduce more information of the same nature:

Ann likes cakes, fruits and juice for dessert.4) Combined ways of expanding a sentence are usually employed to

introduce a great amount of information:The students of our group have travelled all over the north-ern and western parts of the country in the last five years.

Practicesection

Exercise1. Write sentences of your own according to the following sen-tence patterns:

1. SP simple2. SP composite3. S phrasal P simple O direct4. S P O indirect O direct5. S complex P composite6. S P O Adv7. S P Adv8. Independent element S P9. Adv S Adv P Adv Adv10. S phrasal P simple O direct Adv

Exercise2. Expand the following utterances:

1. She is running. 6. He is a teacher.2. How nice! 7. It is useful.3. Morning. 8. The student speaks English.4. Oh! 9. Let me do it.5. We like it. 10. They are 20.

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Exercise3. Analyse the following sentences by identifying and defining the parts of sentence and ways of expressing them:

Example:To tell the truth, the members of the committee should meet for the discussion of the current issues next week.Analysis: The sentence is simple, two – member, complete, extended, declarative and positive.The Subject of the sentence is ‘the members of the committee’ expressed by a noun phrase with the headword ‘members’ modified by the post-positive attribute – a prepositional common collective noun.The Predicate of the sentence is ‘should meet’. It is a compound verbal predicate, which consists of the operator, a modal verb, and the subject complement, a bare infinitive.The Predicate is followed by an adverbial modifier of purpose, expressed by a prepositional noun phrase with the headword ‘discussion’ followed by a postpositive attribute – a prepositional noun phrase, in which the headword ‘issues’ is preceded by an attribute, an adjective.Another adverbial modifier ‘next week’ refers to the time of the action; it is expressed by the noun phrase ‘next week’, in with the headword ‘week’ is preceded by an adjective in the superlative degree.Another adjunct is the parenthetical infinitive phrase ‘to tell the truth’ in with the headword ‘to tell’ is followed by a direct object, expressed by an abstract noun. The infinitive phrase expresses the speaker’s attitude towards the content of the sentence.

1. Some words are printed in red with a star rating to show their frequen-cy. 2. All the definitions are written using a carefully selected ‘defining vocabulary’ of 2,500 words. 3. There is a list of these words at the end of the dictionary. 4. You can find its meaning by looking it up in the diction-ary. 5. Greece has been a republic since 1973. 6. Ruth’s father was a lawyer. 7. I want you to meet a friend of mine. 8. It’s a relief to know about their safety. 9. It was a bitterly cold winter. 10. Most villagers have abandoned

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their homes and fled. 11. After 20 lessons I finally abandoned my attempt to learn to drive. 12. She abandoned caution and caution and began scrambling down the cliff. 13. Despite current problems, they have not abandoned their commitment to the peace process. 14. Tiredness can seriously impair your ability to drive. 15. The ability to speak English has become extremely important. 16. Men and women have different needs, interests and abilities. 17. Barely able to stand, John staggered into the room. 18. The singers were supported by the London Chamber orchestra. 19. Oh, are they already tired? 20. Come here, darling. 21. We’ve discussed all the marketing options and decided to go for television advertising. He is probably at lunch or in a meting. 22.The car has to be serviced every five or six thousand miles. 23. May I take your order, sir? 24. The guards have orders to shoot anyone breaking into the compound. 25. There’s an orientation day for new students. 26. She doesn’t like other people inter-fering in her life. 27. We aim to develop in our students a sense of respon-sibility and a respect for others, the latter being essential at the moment. 28. Information technology has advanced dramatically since the 1960s. 29. They use the Internet as a tool to advance their research. 30. I asked my school to advance the funds for my trip . 31. The home team always have an advantage over their opponents. 32. Cutting the number of workers is not on the agenda. 33. The sisters have been playing music together from an early age. 34. A woman aged 50 has given birth to twins. 35. There is a 10–year age gap between Tare and her husband. 36. She had to go through the agony of leaving her children a few years ago. 37. The stu-dents of the group expected the lecturer to start the class in a different way. 38. Opinion polls show Labour pulling ahead of their nearest rivals. 38. In an interview, the singer aired his views on family life. 39. The aim of this project is to help patients to be more independent. 40. We are getting alarming reports of refugees being rounded up and shot. 41. The United States finally agreed, though unwillingly, to support the UN ac-tion. 42. The money has to be shared out among several projects, the first one being most acceptable at present. 43. I found Michelle rummaging

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among the papers in my drawer the other day. 44. Perhaps we could all go out and have a meal somewhere. 45. Despite our many differences of opinion, we remained good friends. 46. Plans to drill for oil in the region are fiercely opposed by the Board.

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v.negatIonSentences of different structural and communicative types may be affir-mative (positive) or negative. Negation of clauses in English can be car-ried out in two ways:1. By using the negative particle not which is mostly used to negate the

predicate verb of the clause;2. By using a non-verbal negative item, such as never, nobody, nothing,

no, etc.English, differently from many other languages, Lithuanian including, al-lows only one negation in the sentence:

I have never seen anything more beautiful.Cf. with Lithuanian:

Aš niekada nesu nieko gražesnio matęs.

To make a declarative positive or an interrogative sentence negative, a most widely used negator ‘not’ is put immediately after the operator (the verb to be used as a link verb, an auxiliary, a modal verb):

POSITIVE NEGATIVEHe is clever. He is not/isn’t clever.They are coming. They are not/aren’t coming.We may be late. We may not be late.

When there is no operator present, the auxiliary do (did) is to be intro-duced:

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POSITIVE NEGATIVEI enjoy reading. I do not/don’t enjoy reading.We went there by car. We did not/didn’t go there by car.

The negator not has two forms: uncontracted and contracted. The former is usually found in formal English; the latter is characteristic of informal (conversational) English. There are two forms of informal (contracted) ne-gation possible, one with a contracted verb, and the other with a con-tracted negative:

CONTRACTED VERB CONTRACTED NEGATIVEShe’s not coming. She isn’t coming.We’re not tired. We aren’t tired.They’ve not arrived yet. They haven’t arrived yet.He’ll not miss you. He won’t miss you.

Note that the contracted form of will not is won’t. The corresponding forms of can and shall are cannot or can’t, shall not or shan’t. As there is no widely acceptable contraction for am not only the verb con-traction is possible in a sentence like I’m not guilty. The form ain’t is used only in dialects and uneducated forms of English.

In questions with inversion, the negator not can be placed either after the auxiliary in its contracted form, or after the subject in its full form:Don’t you hear me? Do you not hear me?Haven’t you heard the news? Have you not heard the news?Can’t you join us? Can you not join us?In formal use, not is placed in adverbial position right after the reversed auxiliary and subject:

Is John not late?Has he not arrived late?

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Negative questions are often used as exclamations or invitations:Isn’t it nice! (It is very nice!) Don’t you like it! (You like it very much!)Won’t you go with us? (invitation)

Negative questions often expect the positive answer yes. Sometimes they may denote such feelings as surprise or irritation:

Hasn’t the order arrived yet? (surprise)Can’t you speak louder? (irritation)

In imperative sentences the negative particle ‘not’ follows the do-auxil-iary:

Do not drive so fast.Don’t drive so fast.Do not be so strict.Don’t be so strict.

‘Not’ can be used with other parts of the sentence, not necessarily the predicate verb. In this case it precedes the word or phrase it negates:

It’s mine, not yours.It’s a booklet, not a magazine.The situation is complicated and not easy to deal with.The actions were spontaneous, but not carefully planned.

Infinitives and ing-forms are also negated with the help of ‘not’ or ‘never’ put before them:

It was important not to mention a single word of it.I left not wishing to disturb them any more.

The negation of advise, recommend and certain verbs expressing mental processes, such as think, believe, expect, want, like presents instances of transferrednegation(Kobrina 2004:315).The negation, which belongs to the subordinate object clause, is transferred to the principal clause:

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I don’t advise you to buy this shirt. (= I advise you not to buy this shirt.)I don’t think we’ll be in time. (=I think we won’t be in time.)I don’t suppose they will find out about it. (= I suppose they won’t find out about it.)

In short answers or orders with the verbs of mental activity think, be afraid, hope, suppose, believe and after the conjunction if the negative particle ‘not’ may serve as a full clause it negates:

Will you be here tomorrow? – I suppose not.Can you help us? – I’m afraid not.Stop talking! If not, you’ll have to leave.

Certain negative characteristics of negative clauses are found not only with ‘not’, but also with other negative items: no, nobody, nothing, no-where, none, no one and also neither (of), never and the correlative con-junction neither … nor.

There is no time left.No one has any doubts about her abilities.He never seems to be worried.Nothing happened.We had nowhere to go.I’ve been neither to Africa nor America.None of them spoke French.

‘No’ is a negative determiner and is used in English with a noun when it has no other determiner, such as article, possessive or demonstrative adjective. ‘No’ is the usual negator of the subject in sentences with the structure ‘there is/there are’ or direct object:

There were no people in the room.There are no phone calls for you today.I have no money left.She felt no pain.

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‘No’ can add emphasis to the sentence, meaning the opposite of what has been said before:

This is no unimportant problem. (= It is a really important problem)She is no boring. (She is interesting.)

If there is a determiner (article, possessive or demonstrative adjective) be-fore the noun, ‘none of’ or ‘neither of’ is used in the meaning of ‘no’:

Neither of the offers is acceptable to me.I want none of these shirts.

‘Never’ is mostly used in colloquial English and adds emphasis to the sentence:I will never say such a thing.Surely you’ve never seen that before.Why did you tell them the truth? – But I never did.

Two alternative negative structures, corresponding to one positive de-clarative, are therefore often possible, one containing the predicate ne-gated, the other some other negated element. Besides, there are certain words, which are negative in meaning and behaviour, although they do not appear negative in form: hardly, scarcely, barely (= almost … not)few, little (= not many, not much)rarely, seldom, occasionally (= not often)

I hardly ever have holidays in autumn. (Aš beveik niekada nea-tostogauju rudenį.)They have few questions to settle in the meeting. (Susirinkime jiems reikia aptarti nedaug klausimų.)They rarely travel by train. (Jie retai kelaiuja traukiniu.)

Such sentences are called sentences of partial negation whereas senten-ces with N-negatives are usually sentences of complete negation.The table below illustrates the possibilities of making positive structures negative:

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Table2.Negative structures in English

Positivestruc-tures

Negativestructure1

Negativestructure2

Negativestructure3

There’s some time left.

There isn’t any time left.

There is no time left.

There’s hardly any time left.

She met someone at the concert.

She didn’t meet anyone at the con-cert.

She met no one at the concert.

She met few peo-ple at the concert.

I know something about it.

I don’t know any-thing about it.

I know nothing about it.

I barely know any-thing about it.

We go somewhere at the weekends.

We don’t go any-where at the week-ends.

We go nowhere at the weekends.

We hardly ever go anywhere at the weekends.

This shop some-times opens at the weekend.

This shop doesn’t open at the week-end.

This shop nev-er opens at the weekend.

This shop seldom opens at the week-end.

Their team always wins.

Their team doesn’t ever win.

Their team never wins.

Their team hardly ever wins.

He still plays bas-ketball.

He doesn’t play basketball.

He no longer plays basketball.

He rarely plays basketball.

They will join us too/as well.

They won’t join us either.

Neither will they join us.

They will scarcely join us too.

After all types of negative words, normally ‘any’-words occur instead of ‘some’-words, ‘sometime’ and ‘already’ are changed into ‘ever’ an ‘yet’:

I haven’t anything else to add.She hardly ever wears a dress.I’ve spoken to hardly anyone who disagrees with me on this point.

Negative words are followed by positive rather than negative tag ques-tions:

She never seems to care, does she?You won’t forget the letter, will you?

Agreeing in responding to negative questions in English no is used on the basis of the accepted patterns:

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You haven’t been here before?No, I haven’t.

Cf. with Lithuanian:Ne/Taip, nebuvau.

Occasionally, sentences with double negation occur in English, such as the following:

Not many Spaniards have no knowledge of bull fighting. (Ne-daugelis ispanų nieko neišmano apie bulių kautynes. = Dau-guma ipanų jas išmano.)Neighbours should not be uncooperative. (Kaimynai neturėtų būti nebendradarbiaujantys = Kaimynai turėtų bendradar-biauti.)

Such double negation is possible because each negative element ne-gates its own part of the sentence. A paraphrase of the whole sentence will give a positive meaning:

Most Spaniards have some knowledge of bull fighting.Neighbours should be cooperative.

Practicesection

Exercise 1. State what means are employed for making the following sentences negative:

1. Barbara’s not coming to the party. 2. The roads were barely wide enough for two cars to pass. 3. Nobody else knows our secret. 4. We seldom see each other any more. 5. There’s little time left. 6. None of the plates were broken. 7. I don’t feel sorry for her. 8. Few restaurant owners are satisfied, and most object to this regulation. 9. They told me not to worry. 10. At that time there were few women in management positions. 11. There was barely a scratch on his car. 12. There was no hospital in the town. 13. TV,

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video and computer games leave little space for dreaming and imagina-tion. 14. We hardly ever do anything interesting. 15. We’re not as young as we used to be. 16. The countryside around Stowe has hardly changed at all. 17. None of his friends lives nearby. 18. There has been little change since morning. 19. In the UK little work of any description seems to have been done on human behaviour. 20. The teacher could not even remem-ber my name. 21. You have hardly done any work. 22. There’s absolutely no reason to get up early tomorrow morning.

Exercise2. Make the following sentences negative employing the means in brackets:

1. The modem is working properly. (not) 2. There are a lot of first class restaurants in this town. (no) 3. She asked her friend Jane to translate the text for her. (nobody) 4. Have you repaired the car yet? (not) 5. Loud music is allowed here after 12 o’clock. (no) 6. I have seen the new Disney film. (not) 7. I often visit my relatives in Nida in the middle of winter. (hardly) 8. I have some money. (little) I’m afraid I can’t buy a ticket for you. 9. The news gives grounds for hope. (no) 10. He usually prefers tea to coffee for breakfast. (never) 11. I have a lot of friends interested in modern languag-es (few) 12. Scientists think this kind of mushrooms is poisonous. (not) 13. You should have discussed the problem without us. (not) 14. There are quite many new houses in this old village. (no) 15. When being angry James often shouts at the children. (barely). 16. I always go to the drama theatre with my family. (rarely)

Exercise3.Make the following sentences negative. Employ as many vari-ants as you can: 1. We like to have notice of any local events of interest. 2. There was pity in her voice. 3. Cyprus is a great place for holiday. 4. The managers were busy with preparations for the conference. 5. We searched everywhere for them. 6. Walking benefits everyone. 7. All children deserve encourage-

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ment. 8. The study included an analysis of accident statistics. 9. Smaller hotels often offer greater comfort at lower prices. 10. I always get the eight o’clock train. 11. Many of you will be going on to university. 12. Using credit cards appropriately can bring many benefits to students. 13. Much of the work has already been completed.

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vI.InvertedWordorder(InversIon)The main function of word order is to express grammatical relations and determine the grammatical status of a word by fixing its position in the sentence. Word order in English is strict as English is an analytical lan-guage. The direct (usual) word order is characterized by the Subject-Pred-icate unit, which is characteristic of declarative sentences and also em-ployed in pronominal questions to the subject identity (see pronominal questions).The other common pattern of word order is the inverted one (inversion). Grammarians distinguish two types of inversion: fullinversion (when the predicate precedes the subject) and partialinversion (when only part of the predicate, that is the operator, precedes the subject) (Kobrina 2004: 396). Inversion is used to determine communicative types of sentences.

It sounds amusing. (statement)Does it sound ok to you? (question)

Fullinversion is observed under the following conditions:1. When the verb of the sentence is an intransitive verb of position (be,

stand, lie, etc.) or a verb of motion (come, go, fall, etc.). Such sentences usually begin with adverbs ‘here’ or ‘there’ denoting place:

Here comes another bus!There are our guests!

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Here is the postman!There stood the palace in its medieval splendor!

2. There-sentences with the formal introductory non-local ‘there’, fol-lowed by verbs denoting existence or change of the situation:

There has been a murder.There appeared a stranger on the doorway.There occurred a meeting.There lived a famous artist one day.

3. After passive verbs:In the distance could be seen the mountains.In the silence could be heard somebody’s whispers.

Partial(subject-operator) inversion occurs in:1. General questions, polite requests and tag questions:

Did you like the film? Won’t you stay for a while?They enjoyed the party, didn’t they?

2. Special questions, except questions to the subject and its attribute, where direct word order is used:

What are you doing tonight?Where has he gone?Why did they leave so early?

3. Sentences with a negative element such as ‘no’, ‘never’, ‘(not) only’ fronted for emphasis:

Not a word did she say.Only once has he said such a thing.Never have I heard such a stupid thing.

4. Sentences with adverbial expressions with ‘so’ showing that the re-mark applies equally to someone or something else:

I’ve seen the film. – So have I.I can swim well. – So can I.

5. Negative imperative sentences:Don’t you tell such lies.

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Don’t you be so foolish.6. Exclamatory sentences, which are negative in form but positive in

meaning:Have I not warned them! (= I have warned them.)Wouldn’t that be great! (That would be great.)

7. Sentences indicating whose words or thoughts are given as direct or indirect speech:

‘They are coming,’ said the boy.How did they find it out, thought John, intentionally.

8. Exclamatory sentences expressing wish, despair and other strong emotions:

Happy may you be!Come what may!

Another function of inverted word order is to emphasize or make promi-nent that part of the sentence which is more important or informative in the speaker’s opinion. A word becomes prominent or emphatic when it is placed in an unusual position in the sentence. Words performing the function of the subject are generally placed at the beginning while adver-bials of time, manner, degree, etc. normally occupy final positions of the sentence. End position for the subject, fronting of the object or adverbi-als are accompanied by inversion which in such cases performs emphatic function in the sentence:

Must have cost a fortune, that hat of yours! (subject)On the beach some children were playing. (adverbial of place)Actually, I do own a yacht. (predicate)A big attraction is the new theme park. (predicative)The meat he left on his plate. (object)

Special emphasis on words in positions of direct and indirect object may be achieved employing the passive voice forms, in which the words to be emphasized are placed either in the front position or closer to the end:

The teacher gave the student a difficult exercise.

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The student was given a difficult exercise by the teacher.A difficult exercise was given to the student by the teacher.

Practicesection

Exercise1.Comment on the word order andexplain cases of inversion in the following sentences:

1. I did lock the door. I’m absolutely sure. 3. Never again would he be al-lowed to set foot in their house. 4. ‘I’m hungry’ ‘So am I.’ 5. Only in this house do I feel safe and secure. 6. There aren’t many good restaurants around here. 7. How do birds find their way across the sea? 8. Here comes the bus. 9. Here’s your chance to win $10,000. 10. Did you use to work here? 11. ‘Look here!’ he said, pointing to a figure dressed in white. 12. There isn’t much time left. 13. Can I have another slice? 14. There seems to be a lot of confusion. 15. Would you like to sit over there by the window? 16. There’s Angela now, coming up the drive. 17. ‘Never again,’ she swore out loud. ‘Never will I lose my temper.’ 18. The women in the house knew it. So did the children. 19. Not yet, however, in spite of her disappointment in her husband, did Mrs. Bennet give up the point. 20. ‘I have no opinion of her.’ ‘No more have I,’ said the woman. 21. But she does help him on, as mush as possible.’ 22. ‘Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it.’ 23. ‘And so ended his affection,’ said Elizabeth impatiently.’ There has been many a one overcome in the same way.’ 24. ‘Oh! Yes. – Do let the portraits of your uncle and aunt Philips be placed in the gallery at Pemberley. 25. ‘How shall we punish him for such a speech?’ 26. There is something very pompous in his style. 28. ‘You are very cautious.’ ‘I am,’ said he. 29. Tall and graceful she was, in a well-made dress of dark blue silk, almost the colour of her eyes. 30. He did not speak: nor did I. 31. No sooner had they reached the house when they heard the sound of footsteps. 32. Only once did she go to her dear mother for help.

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referenCes1. Alexander, L. G. (1998). Longman English Grammar. Longman Group

UK Limited.2. Biber, D., Conrad, S., Leech, G. (2002). Longman Student Grammar of

Spoken and Written English. Pearson Education Limited.3. Close, R. A. (1979). A Reference Grammar for Students of English. Mos-

cow.4. Croft, W. (2000). Explaining Language Change. An evolutionary ap-

proach. Pearson Education Limited.5. Downing, A., Locke, P. (1995). A University Course in English Grammar.

Prentice Hall International.6. Kobrina, N. A., Korneyeva, M. I., Osovskaya, K. A., Guzeyeva, K. A. (2006).

An English Grammar. Morphology. Syntax. St. Petersburgh.7. Kobrina, N. A., Korneyeva, M.I., Osovskaya, K.A., Guzeyeva, K.A. (2004).

An English Grammar. Morphology. Syntax. St. Petersburgh.8. Leech, G., Svartvik, J. (1975). A Communicative Grammar of English.

Longman Group Limited.9. Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners. (2007). New Edi-

tion. Macmillan Publishers Limited.10. Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English. (2002). Oxford

University Press.

Redagavo autorėsMaketavo Laura Barisienė

Viršelio autorė Dalia Raicevičiūtė

SL 605. 5,25 sp. l. Tir. 150. Užsak. Nr. 09-014Išleido ir spausdino Vilniaus pedagoginio universiteto leidykla

T. Ševčenkos g. 31, LT-03111 VilniusTel. +370 5 233 3593, el. p. spaustuve@vpu.lt

www.leidykla.vpu.lt

Valerija Norušaitienė, Jurgita TrapnauskienėTHE BASICS OF ENGLISH SYNTAX: THE SIMPLE SENTENCE. Teaching Aid. – Vilnius: Vilniaus pedagoginio universiteto leidykla, 2008. – 82 p.

UDK 802.0-56(075.8)

ISBN 978-9955-20-383-4

No-95

Ši metodinė priemonė skiriama anglų filologijos bakalauro studijų programos studentams, taip pat mokytojų perkvali-fikavimo programų dalyviams, studijuojantiems vientisinio anglų kalbos sakinio struktūrą, semantiką ir komunikacinės raiškos aspektus.