THE SENTENCE: FUNCTIONAL ASPECT. ACTUAL AND PRAGMATIC SYNTAX

1. Functionalism in linguistics

It is natural to look at the functional plane of the sentence, because the sentence is the major unit of communication, which performs its communicative function in actual speech.

It is important to note that functionalism in linguistics arises from the concerns of the Czech linguist Vilem Mathesius (1882-1945). Some of the linguists who shared his concerns, including the Russians, Roman Jacobson and Nikolaj Trubetzkoy, met in Prague for regular discussions between 1926-1945 and became known as the Prague School linguists. They believed that" "the phonological, grammatical and semantic structures of a language are determined by the functions they have to perform in the societies in which they operate" (Lyons).

More recently, functionalism has become associated with the British linguist M.A.K.Halliday. Contemporary Russian linguists, who contributed to the development of functional linguistics, include A.V.Bondarko, N.A.Slusareva, T.S.Sorokina, G.A.Zolotova, G.A.Veikhman, among others.

Modern linguistics views the functional side of the sentence in two ways: one way is to study the functions of the sentence components within a sentence; the other way is to study the function of the sentence as a whole in speech. The functional study of sentence components is known as "actual syntax", or the study of "the actual aspect of the sentence", while the functional study of the sentence as a whole is known as "pragmatic syntax". The latter is also known as the study of "the pragmatic aspect of the sentence".

Thus, we may say that the functional plane of the sentence is not uniform. It consists of two aspects: the actual and the pragmatic ones, which reflect different functions. The actual aspect reflects internal functions of sentence components within a sentence. The pragmatic aspect reflects the external function of the sentence as a whole in the process of communication.

2. Actual aspect of the sentence

2.1. Information structure of the sentence. Theme and rheme.

As a unit of communication any sentence conveys some information, which is structurally and semantically expressed by its components. For the information to be properly understood it should be cut up into individual pieces. The individual pieces of information should be given the right emphasis and put in the right order (Лич, Свартвик). Thus, the basis for studying the communicative function of the sentence is the informationit conveys, units of information and their arrangement / organization.

The theory concerned with the division of a sentence into units according to the information they convey is known as the actual division of the sentence (Vachek, Dahl, Блох) or the functional sentence perspective (Danes, Mathcsius, Halliday). The first name emphasizes the division of the sentence into constituents in actual speech. The second stresses the functional goal of the sentence in the process of communication.

The functional structure of the sentence is called its "information structure" (Halliday, Quirk et al.). There are many terms used to designate the units of the information structure. We will consider the two most widespread, namely, "theme" and "rheme" It is worth mentioning, however, that the terms "topic-comment" (Hockett, Палмер), "topic-focus" (Kверк,Лич) and "given-new information" (Halliday) arc also used by some linguists.

The notions of theme and rheme, which originated in Mathesius's work, are both derived from Greek, and are parallel to each other. The term "theme" comes from the Greek root [the] "to set", or "to establish", and means "that which is set or established". The term "rheme" is derived from the root [rhe] "to say" or "to tell", and means "that which is said or told' (about that which was set or established beforehand).

It is obvious that the logical categories of subject and predicate are prototypes of the linguistic categories of theme and rheme. However, while in logic the categories of subject and predicate are analyzed as units of certain forms of thinking (proposition), in linguistics the categories of theme and rheme express the significance of sentence parts in terms of their informative role in the sentence (Блox).

Thus, the information structure of the sentence may consist of two units. One of these units contains given information, i.e. information already supplied by the context. It is called the theme. The other unit contains new information for the sake of which the sentence has been uttered or written. This is called the rheme.

There is a tendency in all European languages to place the theme, that is, the given information, in the initial position in the sentence, while the rheme, the new information, is placed at the end of the sentence. Therefore, the group of the subject generally coincides with the theme and the group of the predicate coincides with the rheme. For example (Fig.1) (Halliday):

Fig. 1. Information structure of the sentence

This kind of placing the components of the sentence informal ion structure corresponds to the natural development of thought from the starting point of communication to its semantic center. In other words, we go from the "known data" to the "unknown (new) data".

Thus, we may say that the most usual themes in English are characterized by three features. Firstly, they express given information, which is already known from the context. Secondly, they are placed in the initial position in the sentence, and thirdly they coincide with the group of the subject. These are called unmarked themes.

When the theme is something other than the subject, or when there are special means used to mark the theme, it is called marked. For example: Talent (T), Mr.Micawber has; money (T), Mr.Micawber has not¹. The same goes for the rheme: It is Charles (R) who went to Paris.

It should be noted that in oral speech, which is actual communication, the rheme of the sentence is always marked by intonation and sentence stress. In written speech, which is virtual communication, the rheme of a separate sentence taken out ofcontext may seem unmarked: Mary is fond of music (Блох). On these grounds, some linguists, L.S.Barchudarov and V.V.Vinogradov among them, assign actual division of the sentence to functional stylistics, not to syntax.

However, any sentence performs its communicative function in a wider context, which actualizes or marks the rheme of the sentence in a certain way, e.g. by means of sentence stress. For example: Mary I is fond of music (as an answer to the question "Who is fond of music? "); Mary \ is fond of music (as a contradiction to "Mary hates music "); Mary is fond of music (as a correction of "Mary is fond of poetry"); Mary is fond of music (as a contradiction to "Mary is not fond of music ").

Other languages mark theme and rheme by other means; for instance, Japanese uses the suffix -wa to signify whatever follows is the theme. Russian uses inverted word order to show the difference between theme and rheme. For example: Cmapuк (T) вошёл (P) - Boшёл (T) cmapuк (P) (Ильиш). It is quite clear that no such variation would be possible in a corresponding English sentence The old man came in.

English, as we know has fixed word order - a definite and permanent place is assigned to every part of the sentence. Does this mean that the theme is always the group of the subject and the rheme – the group of the predicate? That would be an oversimplified vision of the language. Modern English has a system of special means to show that a word or a phrase corresponds either to the theme or to the rheme of the sentence.

2.2. Means of marking the theme

We have seen from the examples above that the usual theme is the unmarked theme. However, there are different ways to mark the theme in the English sentence. They are as follows:

· Syntactic means. To these we assign changes in the fixed word order. Thus, instead of the subject, you may make another element the theme of the sentence. It could be the object, the adverbial modifier or the predicate, which are called fronted in this case. For example: His face \ I am not fond of, but his character \ I despise (object). Willingly \ he'll never do it (adverbial modifier). Rich \ I may be (predicative). Followed | Jive minutes of acute misery (predicate) (Лич, Свартвик). If we change the word order the themes will turn into rhemes. These constructions are not common and are mainly confined to rhetorical speech.

· Morphosyntactic means. This is the definite article. It is used to identify the referent of the noun, to show that the object has already been mentioned and, thus, expresses the "given" information. For example: The delegation \ was met by a group of students.

· Lexicogrammatical means. To these we assign different proforms (personal pronouns, pro-verbs, pro-adjectives, pro-adverbs and pro-conjunctions), which help avoid restating in detail what is given. They are used instead of words already mentioned, thus referring back to something already stated. For example: The child ran into the road. He \ was hit by a car.//John came early, and so did j Fred.// He told them about the job he had left. Such information | was just what they needed.// She got pregnant. Therefore he \ was unable to avoid an unwelcome marriage. Another lexicogrammatical means of marking the theme is loose parenthesis. For example: Eve invited Andy, Bob and Mark. As for Stephen, I \ don't care if I never see him again in my life.

· Lexical means are represented by proper names, which presuppose that the person has already been introduced. For example: (*His name is Bill). Bill | is a student.

With the above examples in mind, notice that the theme need not something known in advance. In many sentences it is, in fact, something already familiar, as in some of our examples. However, it need not always be the case. There are sentences, in which the theme, too, is something mentioned for the first time and yet it is not the information center. It is something about which a statement is to be made. The theme in this case is the starting point of the sentence, not the point of its completion.

To illustrate this statement let us consider the first or opening sentences of any story, e.g. Marshall Zebatinsky felt foolish // Jehan Shuman was used to dealing with men in authority (I.Asimov). Nothing in these sentences can be already familiar, because nothing has preceded and the reader does not know who Marshall Zebatinsky or Jehan Shuman is.

On these grounds some linguists assert that there is no theme in the opening sentences, and the whole of each sentence represents the rheme (Veikhman). Other linguists think that the theme is represented by proper names as the starting point of communication (Ильиш). The third group of linguists shares the latter point of view; moreover, they think that there is some implicit introductory information in every story, preceeding the first sentence. It may be: (*I am going to tell you about Marshall Zebatinsky.) Marshall Zebatinsky | felt foolish. Or (*The story is about Jehan Shuman.) Jehan Shuman \ was used to dealing with men in authority. In this case both names are seen as potentially familiar, and thus, represent the theme.

2.3. Means of marking the rheme

Opposed to the theme is the rheme of the sentence, which is seen as the information center (Слюсарева), information focus (Лич, Свартвик), comment (Палмер), or the point of completion of the sentence (Kверк). Some linguists distinguish within the rheme the nucleus of new information: He | was speaking to me, not to you (Mathesius, Kверк).

Due to the fixed word order of the English sentence many linguists identify the rheme with the group of the predicate or VP (Chafe, Halliday, Cлюсарева).

The idea that the predicate of a clause should be longer or grammatically more complex than the subject | helps to explain why we tend to avoid predicates consisting of just a single intransitive verb. Instead of saying Mary sang we would probably prefer to say Mary sang a song, which gives more weight to the predicate conveying new information (Лич, Свартвик).

The rheme, which coincides with the predicate, is called unmarked. But, as with the theme, there are different ways of marking the rheme of the sentence as well. Let us consider some of them:

· Phonological means, of which intonation and logical stress are the most important. For example, one and the same written sentence may have different theme-rheme models in speech: Mary \ is fond of music (as an answer to the question "Who is fond of music?"); Mary | is fond of music (as a contradiction to "Mary hates music"); Mary is fond qf\ music (as a correction of "Mary is fond of poetry"); Mary is fond of music (as a contradiction to "Mary is not fond of music"). However, intonation and stress are limited to oral speech only. In written speech there are other linguistic and extralinguistic means of marking the rheme.

· Lexical means, such as intensifying particles only, even, so, almost, at least, etc. For example: Even a child j could do this. Only George \ could make a mistake like that. Almost all | liked her.

· Morphosyntactic means, such as the indefinite article and passive constructions.

• The indefinite article has a classifying meaning; with its help the object is referred to a certain class, and, thus expresses new information. For example: The door opened \ and an old man (R) j came into the room (T). Compare with The old man (T) \ came into the room (R). Sentences like An old man is in the room have a certain awkwardness, which may be avoided by introducing there: There is an old man in the room (Кверк).

• Another morphosyntactic means is the passive voice, which reverses direct word order and makes it possible to place new information at the end of the sentence. For example: The vase (T) \ was broken by Uncle George (R). Compare with Uncle George (T) \ broke the vase (R) (Верховская).

· Syntactic means: these are sentences with contrastive complexes, cleft sentences, sentences with emphatic do, one-member and elliptical sentences, as well as inversion of the subject and predicate.

• Contrastive complexes. These are used to attract the listener's attention to the most important information, i.e. information focus. For example: The dress | is meant for your sister, not for you! He \ works at a factory, not at a bank.

• Cleft sentences (расщеплённые предложения). These are emphatic sentences of the type "It is (was) ... who/that...". The cleft sentence unambiguously marks the focus of information in written English where intonation is absent. The highlighted element is the focus, while the rest of the sentence is taken as given. For example: It was Charles who went to Paris. It is to Paris that Charles went. It is by train that he went to Paris. We may speak of the cleft theme in cases like these.

• Sentences with emphatic do and other auxiliaries. For example: (*/ thought John worked hard) He did work hard. (*Why haven't you had a bath?) I have had a bath. (*Look for your shoes.) Iam looking for them.

• One-member sentences. For example: Never mind. What a wonderful world! A nice summer day. Look! These sentences are rhematic, as they express only new information, which cannot be parsed.

• Elliptical sentences. These are sentences which have undergone thematic reduction and contain mostly new information, that is, the rheme. For example: Your name is? - Marvin. How is she? - Sleeping. What are you doing today? - Nothing. Such elliptical sentences are contextually conditioned, their complete structure may be restored from the context, but the theme is so evident that it becomes redundant and is omitted.

• Inversion of the subject and predicate. For example: Here comes (T) | the bus (R). "Go away!" \ said (T) | the child (R). Some linguists assign to this group sentences beginning with there: There is a book in the cupboard. There is a man in the room. (The theme may be treated as cleft in such cases).

In addition to linguistic means, written speech makes ample use of non-linguistic means to mark the rheme of the sentence. Examples of such use include different fonts (bold, italic, regular, Roman, etc.), different spatial arrangement of sentences and their parts. But they are outside the scope of our lecture.

3.4. The functional model of the sentence: Different approaches

During the past few years the theory of the actual division of the sentence has been criticized for its binary character. The critics of the theory say that it is not always possible to divide a sentence into two parts and that it is enough to establish only the focus or the center of information (Kверк).

However, linguists continue to explore the information structure of the sentence and suggest that instead of the two categories of theme and rheme, there should be three, five and even six units. Jan Firbas put forward a trichotomic division of the sentence into theme, rheme and transition (Firbas). The transition unit is usually a link-verb. The Russian linguist Gregory Veikhman offers a tri-, penta-, and hexapartition of the sentence, the last two being more detailed variations of tripartition (Veikhman). It is beyond the scope of this lecture to consider these theories, so we shall follow the universally acknowledged division of the sentence into two parts: theme and rheme.

Thus, the functional model of the simple sentence may be direct, written as T->R, and inverted, written as R->T. In composite sentences the functional model may be complicated and hierarchical (Fig. 2).

Summary of the actual aspect

We have seen then, that the actual aspect of the sentence is concerned with sentence information structure in terms of theme and rheme; in other words, in terms of given and new information or the initial point and the terminal point of communication. The natural arrangement of information goes from theme to rheme and coincides with the division of the sentence into NP and VP. It is always marked in oral speech and may be marked or unmarked in written communication.

There are specific means to mark both the theme and the rheme. Most of these means are syntactic. This illustrates that the actual division of the sentence belongs to syntax, as the theme-rheme relations are manifested regularly in syntactic structures, both marked and unmarked. And because of this we cannot agree with the linguists, who assign actual division of the sentence to functional stylistics.

The function of the actual division of the sentence is to arrange information according to its significance and relevance to communication from the point of view of the speaker with the help of syntactic and other means. Thus, it is a subjective category. The actual division of the sentence is contextually conditioned, as the theme-rheme relations are manifested through the context.

That is why linguists have recently referred the actual division of the sentence to the text level. We would say that it is the functional category of the sentence, which is revealed in the text, i.e. it is text-bound. It is obvious that we can apply actual division to the text as well, but in this case we should speak of theme and rheme of the text, not those of the sentence. ^:

3. Pragmatic aspect of the sentence

3.1. Speech-act theory

Having finished with the actual aspect of the sentence, which is concerned with communicative functions of sentence components, let us now focus our attention on the pragmatic aspect of the sentence. This aspect studies functions of the sentence as a whole in the process of communication.

Pragmatics may be defined as the study of the rules and principles that govern language in use.

Basic to all research in pragmatics is the so-called natural-language philosophy, or speech-act theory developed by J Austin and J.Searle.

The speech-act theory was developed in reaction to the view that a declarative sentence is always used to describe truly or falsely some state of affairs or some fact.

J.Austin points out that there are many declarative sentences, which do not describe, report, or state anything. The utterance of such sentences is the action itself. J.Austin gives a number of examples: / do, as uttered at a marriage ceremony; I name this ship Queen Elisabeth, as ultered by the appropriate person while smashing a bottle against the stem of the ship; I give... my watch to my brother, as written in a will; I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow and the like (Палмер).

To utter such sentences in the appropriate circumstances is not to describe what you are doing: it is doing it. J.Austin calls such utterances performatives, or performative utterances, distinguishing them from constatives or constative utterances, which are used to state a fact or describe a state of affairs (Austin).

The performatives mentioned are clearly marked as performatives by containing within them a verb which stands for the action being performed; thus in saying I do I am doing (taking the man to be my lawful husband), in saying I name I am naming, I bet I am betting, etc.

However, there are many performatives, which do not contain these so-called performative verbs, and which are not even declarative sentences. In many cases, uttering words such as dog, bull, or fire constitutes an action of warning just as much as uttering I warn you that there is a dog/bull/fire. So we may say that these utterances, too, are performatives.

A distinction is therefore drawn between explicit performatives and implicit or primary performatives. JAustin believed that the explicit performatives had developed from the implicit performatives as language and society became more sophisticated. Any primary performative is expandable into a sentence with a verb in the first person singular indicative or the second- or third-person singular indicative passive, a verb, which also names the action, carried out by the performative.

J.Austin estimated that a good dictionary would contain between 1000 and 9999 of these performative or speech-act verbs.

Thus, the speech act theory distinguishes between what we say, what we mean when we say it, and what we accomplish by saying it, or between speech acts involving locution, illocution (or performative utterance), and perlocution.

JAustin segregates the speech act itself into three component acts. A locutionary act (локутивный акт, локуция) involves just the uttering of a sentence with sense and reference; i.e. using sounds and words with meaning (such as repeating sentences in a phonetics or grammar class). An illocutionary act (иллокутивный акт, иллокуция) is the act performed in uttering the sentence with a certain communicative intention. A perlocutionaryact (перлокутивный акт, перлокуция) is the consequential effect of an utterance on an interlocutor, such as what is achieved by saying something (getting someone to do something, persuading, getting an answer to a question, etc.). Together, these three acts producea total speech act that must be studied ina total speech situation.

The speech act theory places the speech act at the center of the study of language. It states that the basic unit of human linguistic communication is the illocutionary act (Searle). It analyzes the way illocutionary acts are linguistically communicated.

Discovering the number, and categories of illocutionary acts is an important part of speech-act theory. J. Searle proposes five classes of speech acts: representatives (statements, conclusions, boasts, etc), directives (requests, orders, challenges, etc.), commissives (promises, menaces), expressives (thanks, congratulations), and declarations (arguments, replies, assumptions). It is quite clear that there are many marginal cases, and many instances of overlap. This is the reason why there have been numerous attempts to arrive at more precise and neat classifications.