P A R T S O F A S E N T E N C E

It is common in grammatical theory to distinguish between main and secondary parts of a sentence. Besides these two types there are elements which are said to stand outside the sentence structure.

There are two generally recognized main parts of the sentence ­- the subject and the predicate. The reason for calling the subject and the predicate the main parts of the sentence is that they constitute the backbone of the sentence: without them the sentence would not exist at all, whereas all other (secondary) parts serve to define or modify either the subject or the predicate, or each other.

THE SUBJECT The subject is one of the two main parts of the sentence. (1) It denotes the thing which action or characteristic is expressed by the predicate. (2) It is not dependent on any other part of the sentence. (3) Morphologically it may be expressed by different parts of speech, the most frequent ones being: a noun in the common case, a personal pronoun in the nominative case, a demonstrative pronoun occasionally, a substantivized adjective, a numeral, an infinitive, and a gerund, even by a phrase.

Types of the Subject From the point of view of its grammatical value the subject may be notional and formal. The notional subject can be personal (denotes persons: The teacher paused for him to continue. J.F.Kennedy was elected president in 1960.) or non-personal (denotes non-persons, including animals, whose name may be substituted by it or they. Look at the cat. It is very small. To deny this was impossible.)

The formal subject can be of 3 types. The first type is with impersonal it, which is used in sentences describing various states of nature, time, distance, measurements, characteristics of the environment: It is cold today. The introductory formal subject is found in 2 patterns of sentences: those with introductory (anticipatory) it, which introduces the notional subject expressed by an infinitive, a gerund, an infinitive/gerundial phrase, or a clause: It’s impossible to deny this. It gave him a pain in the head to walk. It was too late to start; and with introductory there. There was a needle and thread in her fingers. Once upon a time there lived a king. There is no talking about it.

THE PREDICATE The predicate is one of the two main parts of the sentence. (1) It denotes the action or property of the thing expressed by the subject. The predicate is the member of a predication which asserts something about the subject, it characterizes the subject as to its action, state or quality.

(2) It is not dependent on any other part of the sentence. (3) Ways of expressing the predi­cate are varied and their structure will better be considered under ­the heading of types of predicate. Among them there is: a finite verb form, and a variety of phrases of the following patterns: "finite verb + infini­tive", "link verb + noun", "link verb + adjective", "link verb + preposition + noun", etc.

Types of the Predicate Predicates may be classified in two ways, one of which is based on their structure (simple and compound), and the other on their morphological characteristics (verbal and nominal).

If the structural classification is taken as the basic one the following types are obtained: A Simple predicate B Compound predicate (1) Verbal (1) Verbal (2) Nominal (2) Nominal

If the morphological classification is taken as the basic one the result would be the following: A Verbal predicate B Nominal predicate (1) Simple (1) Simple (2) Compound (2) Compound

The Simple Nominal Predicate The Simple Nominal Predicate, that is, a predicate consisting merely of a noun or an adjective, without a link verb, is rare in English, but it is nevertheless a living type and must be recognized as such. One of the spheres of its use is found in sentences where the immediate neighbourhood of the subject noun and the predicate noun or adjective is used to suggest the impossibility or absurdity of the idea.

Sentences with this kind of simple nominal predicate are always exclamatory, that is, they are pronounced with the exclama­tory intonation, and have an exclamation mark in writing. My ideas obsolete!!!!!!! (with 7 exclamation marks) (B.Shaw) expresses the speaker's indignation at hearing his ideas characterized as obsolete by a younger man. It would not do, according to Prof. Ilyish, to call such sentences elliptical, since the link verb cannot be added without completely changing the meaning of the sentence.

There are also some rare types, such as in the text of weather forecast, and the like, for instance: Wind southerly, later veering westward, sea slight, etc. Such sentences as these read like passages from a questionnaire, the adjective answering a question referring to the thing denoted by the noun (wind, sea, etc.).

The Simple Verbal Predicate Lead sinks. I haven’t finished my work yet. The entrance door was closed at 12 sharp. I will get in touch with you later this week.

The Compound Verbal Predicate A rather considerable number of verbs can be followed by an infinitive, some of them with, others without the particle to. Among such verbs are shall, will, should, would, can, may, must (without to); ought, wish, want, desire, hate, fear, begin, start, continue, omit, forget, remember, etc. (with to).

The relation between these phrases and parts of the sentence is of course not the same in all cases. The phrases shall, should, will, would + infinitive, which consti­tute tense or mood forms of the verb, do not belong here. Thus, the phrase shall write is a form of the verb write and, consequently, it is a simple verbal predicate. The phrases with the verbs can, may, must, ought to constitute a compound verbal predicate, as well as the phrases with the verbs wish, want, desire, hate, fear, begin, start, continue.

The Compound Nominal Predicate The compound nominal predicate always consists of a link verb (also called copula) and a predicative, which may be expressed by various parts of speech, usually a noun, an adjective, also a stative, or an adverb (The lesson is over). Of­ten enough the predicative is represented by a phrase (“preposition + noun").

The idea of "link" suggests that its function is to connect the predicative with the subject. The true function of a link verb is not a connecting function. It expresses the tense and the mood in the predicate. The link verb be, which expresses the grammatical categories, is rightly considered to be the most abstract of all link verbs, that is, the one most devoid of any meaning of its own. Other link verbs have some lexical meaning, for instance become, get, continue, grow, turn: Then he grew thirsty and went indoors. But presently the sea turned rough.

S E C O N D A R Y P A R T S The three traditional secondary parts of a sentence are object, attribute, and adverbial modifier.

The object is usually defined as a secondary part of the sentence, referring to a part of the sentence expressed by a verb, a noun, a pronoun, an adjective, a numeral, or an adverb, and denoting a thing to which the action passes on, or denoting an action as object of another action.

There are several types of objects: non-prepositional and prepositional; direct (objects expressing the thing which is sent, shown, given; denotes the thing affected by the action denoted by the predicate verb) and indirect (objects expressing persons to whom the thing is sent; the person toward whom the thing is moved): We sent them a present. You showed my friend your pictures. When the two objects occur together in a sentence, they are distinguished by the relative places in the sentence, that is, by word-order: the indirect object, if it is non-prepositional, stands first, and the direct object comes after it.

The attribute is a secondary part of the sentence modifying a part of the sentence ex­pressed by a noun, a pronoun, a cardinal numeral and any substantivized word, and characterizing the thing as to its quality or property.

The adverbial modifier is a secondary part of the sentence modifying a part of the sentence expressed by a verb, a verbal noun, an adjec­tive, or an adverb, and serving to characterize an action or a property as to its quality or intensity, or to indicate the way an action is done, the time, place, cause, purpose or condition, with which the action or the manifestation of the quality is connected.

There are several ways of classifying adverbial modifiers: (1) according to their meaning: adverbial modifiers of place, time, condition, manner of an action, degree of a property, purpose, etc. (2) according to their morphological peculiarities, (3) according to the type of their head word.

To be continued.