Complex Sentence. Structural classification of complex sentences

Complex Ss are often further classified according to the type of subordinate clauses. The types of subordinate clauses may be identified either on categorical principal or functional principal (the position of what member of the S the clause fills. To characterize the complex S as a complex & to work out the classification of the structural patterns of complex Ss the following criteria are: taken into consideration: 1) the structural completeness of the main part; 2) the means of connection & the way the parts are linked; 3) The relative importance of the main & the subordinate clauses.

Types (structural patterns):

1. Inclusive type. The sub clause performs the function of a missing part in the main clause & is included into the structure of the main clause. The main clause is incomplete without the sub S with Sj, P, O, & some adverbial clauses, dependent on a V. The position of the sub clause in such a S results from its function. The sub clauses in such S are equivalent in their function to a part of the S: What I want to know is why he didn’t come.

2. Ss with pronominal correlation. These are Ss where the conj opening the sub clause is correlated with some pronominal element (a pronoun or an adverb) in the main clause. The meaning & the function of the sub clause depends on the function of the correlative word. The connection between clauses is very tight. The sub clause is mostly in post-position (sometimes in into-position), but never precedes the main clause: It was just that which impressed me most. That – pronom element.

3. Ss with complement or appositive connection. In this type the main clause contains a word devoid of meaning like ‘it’ when it’s formal.Or with a very general meaning (question, problem). The sub clause refers to this word disclosing its meaning. The word itselfis just an anticipatory element. The sub clause is often jopined asyndetically. It can never be in preposition: It’s a pity your leg is hurting you. She has a strange feeling as if smth has happened.

4. Ss in which the sub clause is not indispensable (adverbial clause).

5. Ss with clause characterized by mutual dependence: The mare I read the more I know. Hardly had I entered the room the bell rang.

25. Structural models of S analysis. Distributional model. IC-model.

S is a structural sem & communicative unit. It can be analyzed at different levels. The most universally accepted are syntactic, semantic & logical-communicative. There are different S models:

1. parts of the sentence model or the sentence parts model; (traditional approach).

2. the distributional sentence model; (belongs to structural linguistics)

3. the IC model or the model of immediate constituents; (belongs to str. linguistics)

4. the transformational generative sentence model; (doesn’t belong, but relates to structural linguistics)

5. the models of semantic syntax

The Sentence Part Model. – This is the traditional approach to the analysis of the sentence. It comprises 2 stages:

At the 1^st stage the principle and the secondary parts of the sen-ce are singled out. At the 2^nd stage of analysis we have got to indicate what this or that part of the sen-ce is expressed by and in what form it is used.

e.g. Spring has come.

"Spring" is exp-ed by a sg. N. and a pred. is exp. by the Pr. Perf. Act. form of the verb.)

Бархударов says that this app-ch is not good for theor. analysis because none of the terms it uses is defined precisely enough. In many cases they are vague, ambiguousà 3 problems:

1) Diff. parts of the sent. are sometimes hard to identify. (E.g, it is hard to say whether the infinitive in the phrase / want to know is a part of the pred. or whether it is an object, an independent secondary part of the sentence);

2) The diff-ce btwn the princ. and the sec. parts of the s-ce are said to be sub. or dependent on the principal ones, but the notions of sub-tion and dependency are not clarified.

3) There are no def. & reliable criteria for differentiating some sec. parts of the s-ce. The same gr. construction can be interpreted in diff. ways. (e.g. The construction of a bridge. Here the phrase of a bridge can be identified either as obj. or an att.)

1.Pre –functional models of S analysis. On a pre-functional level the S is described in terms of words & word groups constituting it. There are 3 models:

1. Distributional model.The author - Charles Fries. The theory shows the structure of the S as a succession of words representing diff. classes, which are used in certain gr. forms. The structure of a S is represented in symbolic way. Freeze’s classification of words: he used the functional principles: 4 classes of notional words: class I (nouns), II (verbs), III (adjectives), IV (adverbs). He showed the structure of a sentence as words that represent different classes of words used in certain grammatical forms. EX: The old man saw a black dog there. THE PATTERN OF THIS SENTENCE IN A SYMBOLIC WAY (NB! It’s not a model!!!): D (determiner) 3 (class III) 1a/he (class I, a-1-st word, masculine gender) 2d/-+ (class II, d-past form, - sing + plural) D (determiner) 3 (class III) 1b/he,she,it (class I, b-second word, he/she/it – any gender) 4 (class IV). Sentence model is an approach to analysis. Patterns represent the structure of a concrete sentence in terms of this or that sentence model. This model is considered to be more accurate, yet it’s not devoid of weaknesses. The main one is to represent a sentence as a simple succession of words. It doesn’t show the syntactic relations between words. It fails to distinguish certain syntactical structure. EX: The police shot the man in the red cap. (man in the red cap – attributive phrase). The police shot the man in the right arm. (shot in the right arm – prepositional object). These sentences have identical patterns represented by distributional model. Yet traditional grammar can distinguish their structures.

2.The IC Model or Immediate Constituents model (непосредственные составляющие) This model belongs to structural linguistics, founder – Блумфилд. Pike, Wells also represented this approach. This model represents the structure of the sentence as a hierarchy of levels. At each stage of analysis the sentence is split up into two immediate constituents or two parts of maximum length. So we can say that the division of sentence is carried out on the binary (two parts) hierarchical (several stages) principle. EX: Poor| John| ran| a|way. Блумфилд reached the level of morphemes in his analysis. EX. The || old