Theme 19. The main principles of syntactic modeling the sentence

Plan

1. The traditional scheme of sentence parsing.

2. The distribution model by Ch. Fries.

3. The revision of the existing grammars.

4. IC model.

The traditional scheme of sentence parsing

According to this model well-known to each schoolchild the simple sentence may be viewed as a system of syntactic function-expressing positions (a number of syntactic positions describing a situational event).

The nominative parts of the simple sentence each occupying a syntactical position in it, are the subject, the predicate, an object (one or more than one), an adverbial, an attribute, parenthetical enclosure, addressing enclosure; a special semi-notional position being occupied by an interjection.

The parts of the sentence are arranged in a hierarchy, wherein all of them perform some modifying role. The ultimate and highest aim of this integral modification is the sentence as a whole, and through the sentence – the reflection of the situation. The typical English sentence is built on “predicative line”, realized as the immediate connection between the subject and the predicate of the sentence.

Simple sentences are usually classified into one-member and two-member sentences. Sentences having the grammatical subject and the grammatical predicate are termed “two-member”. If the sentence has only one member (usually the grammatical subject) it is called one-member sentence.

Another structural classification of the sentences is their classification into complete and elliptical.

The study of the syntactic structure presupposes the analysis of its parts. Traditionally, scholars distinguish between the main and secondary parts of the sentence:

e.g. Father bought Mary a new book.

“Father” is the subject of the sentence, “bought” is the predicate, “Mary” being the indirect object to the verb “bought”, “a book” being a direct object to the verb “bought”, “new” being an attribute to the noun “book”.

The next step is a morphological analysis, i.e. one is to qualify each part of the sentence in morphological terms: the subject of the sentence ‘Father’ is expressed by a common noun in the non-Genitive Case, Sg., the predicate of the sentence ‘bought’ is a simple verbal predicate expressed by the irregular verb “buy” in the Past Tense, Non-Perfect, Non-Continuous, Non-Passive etc. ‘Father’ and ‘bought’ are the main parts of the sentence; ‘Mary’ is the indirect object to the verb ‘bought’ expressed by a proper noun in the Non-Genitive Case form, singular; ‘a book’ is a direct object to the verb ‘bought’ expressed by a common noun in the Non-Genitive Case, countable, inanimate, concrete; ‘new’ is an attribute to the noun ‘book’ expressed by a qualitative adjective in the Positive Degree. ‘Mary’, ‘book’, ‘new’ are secondary parts.

L. S. Barkhudarov points out that this approach should be recognized as wholly unsatisfactory and gives several reasons:

1. The main drawback is that hardly any of the terms accepted can be exactly defined, i.e. the term “member of the sentence” or “part of the sentence” has no definition, which results in the lack of hard and fast boundary between the two neighbouring parts of the sentence:

e.g. I want to know.

He likes to go.

One can never be sure whether the infinitive “to know” or “to go” is part of the predicate or a secondary member of the sentence called “object” in its own right.

Since there are no criteria of identifying sentence parts, one can hardly prove the fallacy of either point of view.

1. No difference between the main and the secondary parts of the sentence has been described. The tradition has it that secondary sentence parts depend on the main ones or are subordinated to them. Some grammarians assert that the predicate depends on the subject, which only mars the picture, because it becomes unclear why the predicate is considered to be the main sentence part.
2. There are no criteria of identifying secondary sentence parts. The definitions are so vague that the same constructions are treated differently. E.g. “the construction of the bridge” may be regarded as an object, attribute; in the sentence From the spectators came a muffled cry the phrase “from the spectators” may be treated as an object, an adverbial modifier etc. It is impossible to prove that either treatment is correct. The lack of reliable criteria causes an ambiguous treatment of this part of the sentence.

So L. S. Barkhudarov believes that the model of sentence parsing described above is perfectly unfit for use and doesn’t have much explanatory force.

The Distribution Model

The drawback of the traditional model caused the structuralists to build a new more precise model of sentence analysis. In his book “The Structure of English” Ch. Fries discards the traditional way of approaching the sentence structure and offers a different model which is called distributive. According to Ch. Fries the sentence is a definite sequence of words which belong to certain form-classes and which have a certain distribution.

e.g. The old man saw a black dog there can be represented in the following way:

D 3 1^a 2 d D 3 1^b 4, where

he he/she/it

D – the determiner;

3 – the adjective;

1 - the noun in Sg, masculine;

he

2d – the verb in the Past Tense, Sg or Pl

he/she/it – the noun Sg, masculine, neuter or feminine gender;

a, b show that the nouns have different referents, i.e. they denote different objects or persons.

To put it differently, Ch. Fries’s model represents the structure of the sentence from the point of the distribution of different form classes in a linear speech sequence.

This model also has a drawback: this formula takes into account only the distribution of words which belong to certain form-classes, but it entirely disregards the actual syntactic connections which could be brought down to a mere juxtaposition of form words. It doesn’t help distinguish such sentences as:

e.g. The police shot the man in the red cap.

e.g. The police shot the man in the right arm.

Both the sentences have the same structural formula:

D 1^a 2-d D 1^b f D 3 1^e

he F it

It turns out that Ch. Fries’s model is not of value here. In this respect the sentence parsing model proves stronger than that of Ch. Fries.

One can overcome the drawbacks of the model described above by using IC.