THE 3rd LECTURE 12/10/2015

Syntax. Phrases.

Syntax studies phrases, sentences and texts and before trying to understand what syntax means, we should understand what spheres belong to each level. We will term phrase any combination of two and more words, which is a grammatical unit, but is not an analytical form. The components of a phrase may belong to any part of speech. We do not say that components of a phrase should be notional words only, because the group preposition + noun is also a phrase.

The difference between a phrase and a sentence is very important. A phrase is a means of naming some phenomena or process, just like a word “is”. Each component of a phrase may undergo grammatical changes without destroying the identity of the phrase. E.g. “write letters”, “road letters”, “is writing a letter”. Things are different when we are talking about sentences. A sentence is a unit with every word having its definite form. A change in the form of one or more words may result in a new sentence. It is also necessary to remember that phrases don’t have intonation, which is one of the most common characteristics of a sentence.

è When we are speaking about the types of phrases, this is about the components of a phrase. E.g. “adjective+noun”, “noun+noun”, “adverb+noun”. It could be “speech sound”, “London bridge”. Verb + noun is only about “verb + object”. E.g. “walk a mile”, “dogs bark”. These examples allow us also to conclude that phrases lack in predication.

è Syntactical relations between components of a phrase.

This is agreement and government. By agreement we mean a method of expressing a syntactical relationship, which is about making the subordinate word, take a form similar to that of the word to which it is subordinate. In modern English this can refer only to pronouns “this” and “that” (“those” and “these”) when they agree in number. By government we understand the use of a certain form of the subordinate word required by its “had” word. But not coinciding with the form of the “had” word itself. It is not met very often in the English language and limited only by the use of the objective case after some verbs. E.g. “invite him”.

Sentences.

The notion of sentence hasn’t yet received a satisfactory definition. Discussions are still held about book titles, shop notices. Sentences are very different and can be classified in accordance with variety of factors.

è e.g. “But why did you leave England?”

è “There are today more people writing extremely well, in all aspects of life, than ever before; what we have to do is to sharpen our judgment and pick these out from the still larger number, who write extremely badly.

The most important grammatical differences between these two sentences are:

1) the first sentence expresses a question and has a different structure

2) the first sentence has only one finite verb, while the second has three ones. So, we will have the following classifications:

è according to types of communication – declarative, interrogative, imperative (different structures)

è according to structure we have simple and composite sentences (Composite sentences can be compound and complex (сложносочиненные и сложноподчиненные соответственно).

Parts of a sentence

Main parts of a sentence are the subject and the predicate. The subject is one of the two main parts of a sentence, which denotes the thing or the object, the action and characteristic of which are expressed by predicate. It is not dependent on any other part of the sentence. It may be expressed by any part of speech. Predicate denotes the action or property of the thing or object expressed by the subject. It is not dependent on any other part/parts of a sentence. It has different structures. Secondary parts are object, attribute and adverbial modifier.

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