Sentence. Semantic Structure. Logico-Coinmuuicative Structure

1. The semantic structure of the sentence.

2. Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP).

3. The pragmatic aspect of the sentence.

1. Every linguistic unit may be analysed either from the form to the meaning or from the signification to the means of expression. Traditionally sentence analysis starts from syntactic structure. It is possible, however, to start with the semantic representation and then relate constituents of the semantic (underlying, deep) structure to the constituents of the grammatical (surface) structure.

Models of the analysis of semantic structure were worked out by the representatives of a new school of linguistic thought, called generative semantics. One of these models is Case Grammar devised by the American scholar Ch.Fillmore.

As shown above (see Topic XI), TM distinguished deep and surface structures within the syntactic level. In Case Grammar deep, or underlying structure is semantic and surface structure is syntactic. Deep, or semantic structure has two main constituents: modality (features of mood, tense, aspect, negation, relating to the sentence as a whole) and proposition (a tenseless set of relationships): "S—M + Pr". The proposition is constituted by the semantic predicate (the central element) and some nominal elements, called arguments or participants: "P—-V-+-N1+N2+N3 ...". The proposition is a reflection of situations and events of the outside world. The semantic predicate determines the number of arguments, or opens up places for arguments. Accordingly we may distinguish one-place predicates (She sang), two-place predicates (She broke the dish) and so on. Arguments are in different semantic relations to the predicate. These relations are called semantic roles or deep cases (P+V+C1+C2+C3 ...). The choice of semantic roles depends on the nature of the predicate. The American scholar W.Chafe divides predicates into states and non-states, or events, the latter being subdivided into actions and processes:

(1) Tfie wood is dry. — state

(2) She sang. (What did she do?) — action

(3) The wood dried. (What happened?) — process

Semantic roles, or deep cases are judgements about the events, such as: Who did it? Who did it happen to? What got changed?

The most general roles are agent (doer of the action) and patient (affected by the action or state). Actions are accompanied by agents, states and processes — by patients; predicates, denoting both actions and processes — by agents and patients: She broke the dish.

The original set of deep cases, proposed by Ch.Fillmore, includes 6 cases: agentive, objective, beneficiary, instrument, locative, factitive. Eg.:

(1) He dug the ground. (Objective)

(2) He dug a hole. (Factitive)

Sentences (1) and (2) have the same surface structure, but different deep structure. On the other hand different syntactic structures may refer to the same deep structure:

(1) John opened the door with the, key,

(2) The door was opeied by John.

(3) John used the key to open the door.

(4) The key opened the door.

The problems of formalizing the description of semantic relations have remained very great and case grammar came to attract somewhat less interest in the 1970s.

2. So far we have discussed the sentence as a unit of language. The sentence is also a unit of speech, a minimum free utterance, whose main purpose is to convey information, to express thoughts and feelings.

Linguistic analysis of utterances in terms of the information they contain is called the actual division or the analysis of the Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP). FSP was thoroughly analysed by the representatives of the Prague School of functional linguistics.

FSP refers to the way the speaker structures the information, the way he identifies the relative importance of utterance parts. Usually the utterance consists of two parts: the topic of discussion: something about which a statement is made and the new information, which adds most to the process of communication. These two sections are called the theme and the rheme, or topic and comment. Some sentences contain only the rheme, they are monorhematic: It is getting dark. In the majority of sentences the constituentsare either rhematic or thematic. There are also transitional elements. Sentences containing the theme and the rheme are called dirhematic.

A sentence acquires FSP in the context, but it also has it, taken separately, as it reflects certain contextual relations.

In Modern Russian the rheme is usually placed at the end and the main means of expressing FSP is word-order. As the main function of word-order in English is grammatical, English has other ways of expressing FSP. Thematic elements are indicated by the definite article, loose parenthesis (as for me...), detached parts of the sentence; rhematic elements — by the indefinite article, particles (even, only), negations, emphatic constructions (The, who...). But in the majority of sentences the rheme is also placed at the end, which is achieved by changing the syntactic structure of the sentence. According to V.Y.Shevyakova, only 6% of sentences have regressive structure Rh—Th, 94% have progressive -structure Th—Rh. Some means of preserving the progressive information structure:

1) passive transformations — UNESCO took the first steps. ----The first

steps were taken by UNESCO;

2) the use of conversives —

20 people died in a crush.—The crush killed 20 people.

3) The use of the personal subject and the nominal predicate — It was silent in the room.—The room turned silent.

Some means of making the subject rhematic: the constructions there is/there are., it is necessary, inversion, etc.

Thematic elements contribute little to the meaning of the utterance as they reflect what has already been communicated, in other words they have the lowest degree of communicative dynamism (CD). Rhematic elements, containing new information which advances the communicative process have the highest degree of CD.

3. The study of the communicative functions of utterances in particular contexts of use is the sphere of pragmatics. There is no general theory of pragmatics which is a field of study between semantics, socio-linguistics and extralinguistic context. It is interested in a variety of topics. It may be characterized as the analysis of speech acts, the study of principles of conversational performance: usage, understanding, appropriateness.

Semantics is concerned with sentence meaning, pragmatics - - with utterance interpretation. Consider the sentence

I have no cigarettes.

The sentence meaning is derived from the meanings of lexical items and grammatical structure. But this sentence may be interpreted differently, depending on the context and background knowledge of the interlocutors: (1) Could you spare me a cigarette?

(2) Give me some cigarettes.

(3) You promised to buy cigarettes.

In communication we expect the interlocutor to be co-operative, i.e. make an attempt to understand what we say and make relevant responses. The theory of co-operative behaviour was proposed by the American linguist H.P.Grice, who outlined the following maxims:

1) Maxim of Quality: be sincere, do not say what you believe to be false or that for what you lack adequate evidence;

2) Maxim of Quantity: be as informative as is required by the situation, no more;

3) Maxim of Relation: be relevant;

4) Maxim of Manner: be brief, orderly and clear; avoid obscurity and

ambiguity.

Another aspect of speech act analysis is the study of relationships of utterances (discourse structure), for example, in classroom situations.

Teacher—Pupil: T-question, P-response, T-accept and comment; T-question, P-no response, T-prompt or repeat question; T-question, P-no response, T-prompt, P-no response, T-supply answer and seek corroboration, P-confirmation.

The development of pragmatics influenced the methodology of teaching, the present phase of which is communicative approach, defining the aim of language study as the use of appropriate language for particular situations.

TOPIC X1I1