Text as an Object of Research. The Problem of the Text Unit

The Composite Sentence

Pragmatic transposition of sentences

Sometimes a sentence characterized by formal features of some pragmatic type in speech acquires illocutionary power of sentences of another type. Such cases are referred to as indirect speech acts. Indirect speech acts are commonly used to reject proposals and to make requests. For example a speaker asks, “Would you like to meet me for coffee?” and another replies, “I have class.” The second speaker used an indirect speech act to reject the proposal. This is indirect because the literal meaning of “I have class” does not entail any sort of rejection.

Unlike a simple sentence that consists of a single independent clause with no dependent clauses, a composite sentence is built up by two or more predicative lines. A general classification of composite sentences is based on two criteria – the type of syntactic connection and the rank of predicative constructions. Here compound and complex sentences are singled out. In the compound sentence predicative constructions of the high rank are connected by means of coordination while in the complex sentence – by means of subordination. According to the way in which parts of the composite sentence are joined together, two types can be singled out:

1) syndetic (by means of connectors);

2) asyndetic (without any connectors).

The process of coordination involves the linking of structures of equal grammatical rank — single words and phrases in elementary compound groups or independent clauses in compound sentences.

Complex sentences are structures of subordination with two or more immediate constituents which are not syntactically equivalent. The semantic relations that can be expressed by subordination are much more numerous and more varied than with co-ordination: all such relations as time, place, concession, purpose, etc. are expressly stated in complex sentences only.

In complex sentences, traditionally, the main and the subordinate clause are singled out. There can be different approaches to classifying subordinate clauses.

9. Текст. Его единицы и категории.

Text can be understood as an instance of (spoken or written) language use (an act of parole), a relatively self-contained unit of communication. As a ‘communicative occurrence’ it meets several criteria of textuality. Among them are cohesion and coherence. Cohesion can be defined as the links that hold a text together and give it meaning. The term cohesion denotes the way in which linguistic items of which texts are constituted are meaningfully interconnected in sequences. Each piece of text must be cohesive with the adjacent ones for a successful communication.

Coherencein linguistics is what makes a text semantically meaningful. It is the general topicdevelopment which provides a text with necessary integrity; even in the absence of overt links, a text may be perceived as coherent, as in various lists, charts, timetables, menus.

Textual Units One of trends in modern text linguistics is describing such syntactic formations, or text units, identifying patterns according to which they are built and studying relations between them. Irrespective of their specific features, all text units are united by their common function – they represent the text as a whole integrally expressing the textual topic. There is no universal agreement as to the term that should be used to describe text units. In the Russian tradition the following terms were used to refer to such formations: “phrase”, “strophe”, “prosaic strophe”, paragraph”, “microtext”, “syntactic complex”, “communicative bloc”, “supra-phrasal unity”. The latter is the most commonly used one. The supra-phrasal unity is a minimal text unit consisting of two or more sentences united by a common topic. In some cases the SPU can coincide with the text if it’s a short one, for example, a news item in the newspaper, a miniature story, etc. However, most commonly, the SPU is a component of a larger text. The SPU consists of at least two sentences, it is characterized by topical, communicative and structural completeness and the author’s attitude towards what is being communicated.