Types of Syntactic Relation between subordinate phrase components.

3 types of syntactic relations within word-groups: subordination, coordination, interdependence. Accordingly, phrases are usually classified into subordinate, coordinate and predicative. Sometimes a fourth type, appositive phrases, is mentioned.

H.Sweet: the most general type of relation is thatof the modifier and modified (headword and adjunct), or the relation of subordination. He also distinguished the relation of coordination

O.Jespersen. The theory of three ranks is based on the principle of determination. In the word-group a furiously3 barking2 dog1 1 is independent and is called a primary, 2 modifies 1 and is called a secondary, 3 modifies 2 and is called a tertiary. A secondary may be joined to a primary in two ways: junction and nexus. These terms are used to differentiate between attributive and predicative relations (relations between the subject and the predicate),

Subordinated phrases are divided according to:

a) their structure (simple or complex);

b) types of subordinate relations (predicative, attributive, objective, adverbial phrases);

c) the position of the adjunct in the phrases (before the kernel (prepositional phrases) or after the kernel (postpositional phrases, e.g.: a woman of character);

d) manner of subordination (phrases with agreement, government or adjoining, enclosure);

e) morphological nature of the kernel – noun, verbal, adjectival and adverbial phrases.

Blokh’s types of syntactical relation:

1. Equipotent type(равнопотенциальный )- syntactically equal connection of words type of syntactical relation
2. Dominational (or subordinational) type (см. выше)

Monolateral - realized in the attributive, objective and adverbial connections.

Objective connection reflects the relation of the object to the process, and subdivided into non-prepositional (actualized by word-order) and prepositional, e.g.:

1) He regretted the event;

2) I forget about the event.

From the semantico-syntactic point of view objective connections are classed as directand indirect (or oblique). Direct object constructions reflect immediate transition of the action to the object. Indirect (oblique) object constructions reflect the indirect relation of the object to the process, e.g.:

1) Will you give me the book (direct object)?

2) He ran up to the house.

Attributive connection unites a substance with its attribute expressed by an adjective or a noun, e.g.: a nice picture, a woman of means, a man of his word.

Adverbial connection can be of two types:

Primary- V+ adverbial modifiers, e.g.: to come late; to do (smth.) with enthusiasm

Secondary- non-verbal head word (quality) + its adverbial modifiers, e.g.: no longer attractive (head word),appallingly alike (head word).

The sentence.

There are more than 300 different definitions of the sentence, but not a universal one.

5 approaches to the definition of the sentence:

Logical, psychological, phonetic, graphical, grammatical.

Logical: “a sentence is an expression of a complete thought, it’s a judgment or a proposition”.

Blokh: “the sentence is a unit of speech, built up of words according to a definite syntactic pattern and distinguished by a contextually relevant communicative purpose.”

Foreign scholars against this definition, as the meaning isn’t an integral part of a sentence.

Psychological Шахматов: a sent.is a psychological phenomenon which is expressed grammatically.

Phonetic approach: Paul Roberts :a sent. is a succession of sounds divided into brief groups by pauses required for taking breath”.

Cons of this approach: 1) the sent. can be considered only in oral communication; 2)the impossibility to single out a composite sentence because there is a pause in the inner structure of a composite sentence as well.

Graphical approach: sent. – a succession of words between 2 full-stops”.

Cons of this approach: the sentence may be defined only in writing.

Grammatical. In modern grammar: “ a sent. – is a grammatical unit”.

C.Freeze: “ a sent. – a minimal free-utterance”.

L.Bloomfield: “a sent. – a free linguistic form,which isn’t a part of any other linguistic form”.

Problem is: should a sentence be regarded as a unit of language or speech?