Intensity and emphasis in english sentence-structure
Expressive nuances and intensity of meaning can be obtained in any language by linguistic devices of different levels: phonetic, morphological, syntactic and phraseological, by word-building and special intensive words. All these can function as expedients to produce emotive and logical intensity of the utterance. Some of such intensifying forms, established by long use in the language and recognised by their semantic value and purpose, are registered in good dictionaries as intensifiers or intensives. In most cases they have their neutral synonymic alternatives.
Phonetic means are most powerful in expressive connotation. The human voice can always give the necessary prominence to the utterance, indicating such subtle shades of meaning that perhaps no other means can actualise. Modulation features, intonation and stress, pausation, drawling, whispering and other ways of using the voice are known to be most effective in intensifying the utterance logically or emotionally.
A major object in style is to call the attention of the reader in a forcible way to the most important part of the subject — in other words, to give emphasis to what is emphatic, and to make what is striking and important strike the eye and mind of the reader.
The position of words and syntactic structures relative to one another presents quite a special interest. But intensity and emphasis can also be produced in other ways. The selection of such linguistic devices is a factor of great significance in the act of communication. This part of syntax in any language is a source of constant linguistic interest. Syntactic structures are subtle and delicate in their different shades of meaning, and it is not always easy to find the ones that express precisely what we want to say. It is only a matter of having a good command of language and a fairly wide vocabulary; it is also necessary to think hard and to observe accurately.
There is natural tendency in any language to develop its emotional and affective means of expression. We cannot fail to see that there are not only points of coincidence here but specific features characteristic of any given language with its own patterns of formations and its own types of structural units. Important treatments of the subject have been made by many scholars.
Intensity and emphasis can be expressed, for instance, by functional re-evaluation and transposition of various syntactic structures, by special grammatical idioms — fixed patterns of usage, by idiomatic sentence-patterns.
Observations on the contextual use of various patterns furnish numerous examples of re-interpretation of syntactic structures by which we mean stylistic transpositions resulting in neutralisation of the primary grammatical meaning of the given linguistic unit. The "asymmetric dualism of the linguistic sign"1 appears to be natural and is fairly common at different levels of any language.
The linguistic mechanism, prosodic features, in particular, work naturally in many ways to prevent ambiguity in such patterns of grammatical structure.
A major interest is presented, for instance, by "nexus of deprecation" with the implicit expression of negation in sentences without "negative" words, or the use of negative structures with the implication of affirmative emphatic assertion.
Rhetorical questions are not limited by conversational dialogues. They are fairly common in monologues of various genres — publicist, literary prose, scientific English and oratory where they are not intended to elicit an answer but are inserted for rhetorical effect to draw the attention of the hearer towards the contents of the utterance.
Scholars are not agreed at this point of analysis. Some grammarians hold the view that rhetorical questions imply a disguised assertion2, others emphasise that a rhetorical question presupposes a negative answer and is in fact a special form of negation. Rhetorical questions are sometimes referred to as structures implying both assertion and negation.
Appellation to the hearer implied in interrogative sentences, in general, makes the rhetorical question a most effective means to express intensity of feeling in colourful lively speech:
"I never see him doing any work there", continued Harris, "whenever I go in. He sits behind a bit of glass all day, trying to look as if he was doing something. What's the good of a man behind a bit of glass? I have to work for my living. Why can't he work? What use is he there, and what the good of their banks?.. What is the good of that? (Jerome K. Jerome)
Could a man own anything prettier than this dining-table with its deep lints, the starry, soft-patelled roses, the ruby-coloured glass, and quaint
1 See: S. Каrсevsку. Du dualisme asymétrique du signe linguistique. TCLP, 1, 1929.
2 See: И. Р. Гальперин. Очерки по стилистике английского языка. М., 1958.
silver furnishing; could a man own anything prettier than the woman sitting at it? (Galsworthy)
In patterns with "implied" or non-grammatical negation the connection between the two sentence elements is brushed aside as impossible; the meaning is thus negative which is the same as questions, often in an exaggerated form or not infrequently given to the two sentence elements separately, e. g.:
"Darling, it was very harmless".
"Harmless! Much you know what's harmless and what isn't".
Fleur dropped her arms. (Galsworthy)
"Mr. Copperfield was teaching her. Much he knew of it himself" (Dickens)
By the front door the maid was asking:
"Shall you be back to dinner, sir?"
"Dinner!" muttered Soames, and was gone. (Galsworthy)
Cf. «Вы меня нынче совсем измучили», — «Замолчи ради бога». (Полина) — «Как же дожидайся, буду я молчать!» (Н. Островский)
«Да чего ты рассердился так горячо?»... — «Есть из-за чего сердиться!» (Гоголь)
Він відмовився від своїх слів! Не можу повірити!
The implication of affirmative emphatic assertion will be found in examples like the following:
Bicket swallowed violently again. "It's all very well," he said sullenly; "it asn't appened to you!"
Michael was afflicted at once. No! It hadn't happened to him! And all his doubts of Fleur in the days of Wilfred came hitting him. (Galsworthy)
Cf. "Proud? And how's she earned it! Proud! My Gawd." (Galsworthy)
Oh? Swine that he was, to have thought like that — of Vic! He turned his back to her and tried to sleep. But once you got a thought like that — sleep? No. (Galsworthy)
In colloquial English there are numerous standardised types of rhetorical questions expressing a categorial disagreement with the opinion of the collocutor, e. g.:
What business is it of yours? You mind your own affairs.
Doolittle (remostrating). Now, now, look here, Governor. Is this reasonable? Is it fair to take advantage of a man like this? This girl belongs to me. I got her. (Shaw)
Cf. «Ну для чего ты пташку убил? — начал он, глядя мне прямо в лицо.— «Как для чего! ... Коростель — это дичь: его есть можно».— «Не для того ты убил его, барин: станешь ты его есть!» (Тургенев)
«Что ж они и мазут весь увезли?» — недоверчиво спросил кривой Чумаков.— «А ты думал, дед, тебе оставили? Очень ты им нужен, как и весь трудящийся народ» (Шолохов).
French: Moi faire ça?
German: Erf So was sagen!
Intensity of meaning can be produced by such special syntactic patterns as:
a) patterns with so-called "appended statement", e. g.:
He likes a low death-rate and a gravel soil for himself, he does. (Shaw)
You're the sort that makes duty a pleasure, you are. (Shaw)
He used to wolf down a lot in those days, did Dad. (Shaw)
b) pleonastic patterns like the following:
Bicket had a thought. This was poetry — this was. (Galsworthy)
c) the use of the verb go functioning as an emphatic auxiliary in idiomatic pattern go and Vfinwhere there is no idea of real motion attached to the verb go.
Present Tense
Non-emphatic Emphatic
Why do you say such things? Why do you go and say such
things? Past Indefinite
He did it. He went and did it.
Present Perfect
He has caught it. He has gone and caught it. Past Perfect
He had caught it. He had gone and caught it.
His grey eyes would brood over the grey water under the grey sky; and in his mind the mark would fall. It fell with a bump on the eleventh of January when the French went and occupied the Ruhr. (Galsworthy)
(Went and occupied = occupied)
"If you're Master Murdstone", said the lady, "why do you go and giveanother name, first?" (Galsworthy)
(Why do you go and give... = Why do you give...)
"He mustn't catch cold — the doctor had declared, and he hadgone and caught it. (Galsworthy)
(She had gone and caught it — he had caught it)
Verb-phrases of this type imply disapproval of the action, its irrelevance or unexpectedness with different shades of subjective modal force depending on the context, linguistic or situational.
...His grandmother turned from the fire: "What have you gone and donenow, you silly lad?"
"I fell into a bush," he told her. (Sillitoe)
Intensity of meaning may be produced by patterns with the ing-form following the verb go when the latter is also semantically depleted and is used idiomatically to intensify the meaning of the notional verb, e. g.:
He goes frighteningpeople with his stories.
"I shall see you again before long, my boy!" he said. Don't you go payingany attention to what I've been saying about young Bosinney — I don't believe a word of it!" (Galsworthy)
James was alarmed. "Oh", he said, don't go saying I said itwas to come down! I know nothing about it. (Galsworthy)
You'll go burning you fingers — investing your money in lime, and things you know nothing about. (Galsworthy)
Don't go putting on any airs with me. (Mitchell)
Compare the use of the Russian verb взять functioning as an emphatic auxiliary in idiomatic patterns with particles of emphatic precision:
возьми и расскажи (возьми да расскажи); взял и рассказал (взял да рассказал); возьмет и расскажет (возьмет да расскажет); взял бы и рассказал (взял бы да рассказал), etc.
Не знаю, чем я заслужил доверенность моего нового приятеля,— только он, ни с того, ни с сего, как говорится, взял да и рассказал мне довольно замечательный случай... (Тургенев)
Most forceful and expressive are idiomatic patterns where the determining and the determined elements of the denotation mutually exchange their respective parts, e. g.: a jewel of a nature, a devil of a journey, etc.
In common use the bearer of a quality is regularly denoted by the basic noun, while the quality attributed to this bearer is expressed by an element developing that basic noun. In patterns like a jewel of a picture the quality is expressed by the basic noun, while its bearer is denoted by the of -phrase developing that noun. This construction is not known in Old English. It has come into the language from French.
Further examples are: a slip of a boy, a slip of a girl, a love of a child, a peach of a girl, a devil of a fellow, a jewel of a cup, a doll of a baby, a brute of horse, a screw of a horse, the deuce of a noise, a deuce of a journey, a devil of a toothache, a devil of a hurry, her pet of a baby, a beast of a cold, the ghost of a voice, the ghost of a smile, a rascal of a landlord, etc. Such grammatical idioms are generally used to express either delight or admiration, scorn, irony or anger.
The idiomatic character of these forcible and expressive phrases offers certain difficulties in translation. The absence of analogous formations in a recipient language suggests the choice of other means to render a given idea in each case, such as, for instance, appositive use of nouns, epithet adjuncts or descriptive translation. Compare the following in Russian and Ukrainian:
| a) | giant of a man | ( человек-великан [людина-велетень |
| b) | a hell of a noise \ | адский шум страшенний шум |
| c) | a love of a child | прелестное дитя чудова дитина |
| d) | a devil of a fellow | отчаянный малый шалений хлопець |
| e) | the deuce of a price | бешеные деньги шалені гроші |
| f) | a devil of a hurry | ужасная спешка шалений поспіх |
| g) | a jewel of a nature | редкостная натура рідкісна натура |
| h) | a doll of a girl | Не девочка, а кукла Не дівчина, а лялька Лялька, не дівчина |
| i) | a jewel of a girl | Не девочка, а золото Золото, не дівчина |
Consider also the following:
"Perhaps you know that lady", Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state under a white-plum tree. (F. Fitzgerald)
What a jolly little duck of a house! (Galsworthy)
His own life as yet such a baby of a thing, hopelessly ignorant and innocent. (Galsworthy)
IDIOMATIC SENTENCES
Syntactic idiomaticity is a universal feature of language development observed in most if not in all languages.
By idiomatic sentences we mean sentences with a purely idiomatic grammatical arrangement. The meaning of such sentences cannot be readily analysed into the several distinct components which would be expressed by the words making up an ordinary sentence.
Syntactic idioms merit special linguistic consideration as relevant to grammatical aspects of style and synonymy in grammar.
Accurate studies of syntactic idioms have not yet been made. Many questions about their grammatical status go unanswered and, indeed, unasked. Important treatments of the subject in the Russian language have been made by N. U. S h v e d о v a and D. H. Shmelyov1.
Interesting observations in this part of German syntax have been made by O. I. Moskalskaya2. Sentence-patterns with a purely idiomatic grammatical arrangement in present-day English have naturally their own traits of formation and conventional practices. But sometimes we find here close parallels to certain fixed types of syntactic idiomaticity observed in other languages which should not escape the notice of the student.
Syntactic idioms transcend the ordinary syntactic constructions and are, in fact, shaped and arranged according to special patterns. The words that make them up are variable, but their types seem to be fixed.
Syntactic idiomaticity is far too big a subject to be treated adequately in our short course, where reasons of space make it possible to mention only its essential features.
Syntactic idioms have rather a high frequency value in spoken and written English. They are stylistically marked units with subjective modal force and as such add much to the emotive value of the utterance. Most of them function as expedients to produce intensity or emphasis of meaning in expressive language. In idiomatic sentences we generally find special formative elements of their typification. In these terms, at least to a workable degree, we shall distinguish the following patterns:
1. Fixed stereotyped idiomatic sentences implying confirmation or negation. The necessary meaning is always signalled by the consituation, e. g.:
1 H. Ю. Шведова. Очерки по синтаксису русской разговорной речи. М., 1966; Д. Н. Шмелёв. О связанных синтаксических конструкциях в русском языке, «Вопросы языкознания», 1960, № 5.
2 О. I. Moskalskaya. Grammatik der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. M., 1971.
It was a swell party, and, how!
Cf. Еще бы!
Similarly in Ukrainian: Ще б пак! Аякже! In German: Und wie! Und ob!
Und was für einer! Well, I never!
Well, to be sure! Well, of all things! ' Well, of all things," replied her friend, "Wonders never cease, do they Aileen?" (Dreiser) Cf. Вот так так! Вот тебе на! Ukrainian: От так раз!
Related to these are expressive interjectional patterns implying confirmation or negation, such as:
Dear me! Oh, dear! By heaven!
2. Idiomatic sentence-patterns with implicit negation, e. g.:
a) N(p) N(p) He a coward!
b) N(p) and N(p) She and a failure!
c) N(p) and Vinf An actor and refuse to help
us!
d) N(p) and A Michael and joyless!
e) Np and pN She and in trouble!
f) Np A He arrogant and cruel!
g) NpVinf Me dance!
3. Idiomatic pseudo-subclauses:
a) patterns with the typifying not that, e. g.:
Soames shook his head. "Improve his health — very likely. Has he ever been in prison"? "Not that I know of". (Galsworthy)
(Not that I know of — наскільки мені відомо).
"Your father in town?" "I believe so, sir". "Good!" Not that he felt relief. (Galsworthy)
(Not that he felt relief — він не відчув особливого полегшення).
But there, thinking's no good to anyone — is it madam? Thinking won't help. Not that I do it often. (Mansfield)
(Not that I do it often — я роблю це не часто).
Not that he ever mentioned it — one did not use such a word! (Galsworthy)
(Not that he ever mentioned it — він ніколи не висловлював цього вголос,— про це не говорять).
Cf. German: Nicht dass er wusste!
French: C'est ne pas qu'il soit content.
Idiomatic sentence-patterns of the given type seen to have their transformational origin in idiomatic structures with it is... that, it was... that, to which they are, no doubt, related as stylistic variants
b) exclamatory pseudo-subclauses, e. g.:
That he should have made such a mistake!
Cf. И надо же было ему сделать такую ошибку!
Ukrainian: И треба ж йому було зробити таку помилку!
Cf. German: Dass ihm das passieren musste!
French: Fallait-il qu'il soit venu!
c) patterns with pseudo-subclauses of condition intensifying the meaning of some quality as expressed in a given message, e. g.:
Freddie gashed: "You're a lucky devil, if ever I met' one. Such a nice thing". He grinned enviously. (Cronin)
I know your motives are always above reproach. However Johnnie Gallegher is a cold little bully, if ever I saw one. (Mitchell)
Cf. If ever there was dressiness, it was here. It was personification of the old term spick and span. (Dreiser)
If ever the girl looked like a leopardess, it was now; her strange, deep set eyes kept sliding from her 'cub' to him who threatened to deprive her of it. (Galsworthy)
Patterns of this type are syntactic idioms obviously distinct from units of the formula character like How do you do?; the latter is for all practical purposes one unchanged and unchangeable formula the meaning of which is really independent of that of the separate words into which it may be analysed. But patterns like If ever I met one are of a totally different order. The type is fixed but alterations can be made here, some words are variable, e. g.: if ever there was one; if ever there can be one; if ever there could be one, etc.
Similarly: Sit still, all you can. (All you can → as still as you can).
I hurried all I could, mum, soon as I seen that cloud, the girl puffed with the air of one who is so seriously thankful to have escaped a great disaster. (Bennett)
It was hard to think about, but only made her more than ever determined to cling to him, whatever happened, and to help all she could. (Dreiser)
d) stereotyped interjectional phrase: there is a good fellow (boy, etc.). Cf. — Вот это хорошо, за это спасибо.
— От добре, за це дякую.
Intensification of the grammatical meaning is often expressed by such idiomatic patterns where emphasis is produced by the use of the so-called "emphatic would", e. g.:
There it goes. That would be. That would happen to me. I haven't got enough trouble. Here for the evening at the foul party where I don't know a soul. And now my garter has to go and break. (Parker)
Eh, I'd right miss you if you vent, I would and all.
He would come — just when I wanted to go out! {-How annoying that he has come!)
You would and you wouldn't can be used to express indignation in situations like the following:
— I'm afraid I don't know when the train leaves.
— Oh, you wouldn't (— You never know anything!)
The relevance of context to the significance of such units must never be overlooked. Like in all other cases of syntactic ambivalence, the meaning of the sentence is made clear by contextual indicators.
Variants in their use producing subtle shades of subjective modal meaning and emotional value present rather a complicated subject which linguists have by no means fully worked out. The expressive elements cannot be studied outside of their relation to the distinctive objective elements of language which are emotionally neutral. And this leads us to synonymy in grammar which is the principal concern in discussing the stylistic aspects of syntax.
CONSTRUCTIONAL HOMONYMITY
The theory of sentence-structure must do more than only describe the well-formed sentences of a natural language. There are many other facts about the sentences of a language that must be explained by a linguistic theory.
Some sentences are semantically parallel to other sentences of a different structure. Some sentences are related in a definite way to certain sentences. Some sentences are ambiguous and so on.
Grammar must provide an explicit basis for explaining the native speaker's understanding of the relationships between the sentences. It must also show the difference between overtly parallel sentences, the sentences which have the same structure at an appropriate level of abstraction.
Sentences must always be judged in their contexts.
Various important relations between sentences and types of constructions can be adequately explained by transformational analysis.
Ambiguity is an important feature of a natural language.
There are naturally different kinds of ambiguity. The sentence "The table was here" is ambiguous because table has several lexical meanings, e. g. "a table of contents", "mathematical table."
Similarly, the sentence "The train was long" is ambiguous because of the lexical meaning of the noun train: "that which runs on the railroad", and "that which is attached to a bridal gown". This kind of ambiguity is lexical, not grammatical.
The sentence Mary told her sister that she had acted foolishly is an example of grammatical ambiguity. The reference of the pronoun is not clear. We do not know whether she refers to Mary or her sister. Similarly, the sentence The boy looked fast. We don't know whether fast is an adjective (speedy) or an adverb (speedily). The phrase the men with the boys who were laughing is a grammatical ambiguity of a different sort; we can identify the word classes, but we do not know what goes with what — i. e., what the immediate constituents are.
Further examples are given below.
Consider the phrase (1) which can be understood ambiguously with the hunters as the subject, analogously to (2), or as the object, analogously to (3):
(1) the shooting of the hunters;
(2) the singing of birds;
(3) the raising of the cattle.
On the level of phrase structure there is no good to explain this ambiguity: all of these patterns are represented as the Ving + of-phrase.
In transformational terms, however, there is a clear and automatic explanation: the shooting of the hunters has two distinct transformational origins: the hunters shoot and they shoot the hunters, which are both kernel sentences. The ambiguity of the grammatical relation results from the fact that the relation of shoot to hunters differs in the two underlying sentences. Lexical improbability excludes the possibility of "they sing birds" or "cattle raise", which are not grammatical kernel sentences.
Covert (deep structure) relations do not manifest themselves in the surface structure. Compare the following:
(a) She made him a good wife.
(b) She made him a good husband.
The surface structures of the two sentences (a) and (b) are identical but their syntactic meanings differ essentially. Through transformation the covert syntactic relations are made explicit:
(a) She became a good wife to him.
(b) He became a good husband because she made him good.
The validity of the theory of surface and deep structure as applied to the explanation of syntactic homonymity in any language can hardly be doubted.
All languages have homonymy at several levels. Observations on syntactic structures of various types furnish numerous examples of homonymic patterns, i. e. such syntactic units as are identical in their grammatical arrangement but differ in meaning. Numerous situations may be pointed out in which structural ambiguities commonly occur. In such instances we may easily observe that ambiguity is resolved by some other element, linguistic or situational, or intonation.
A descriptive analysis of the structural signals of English will always be helpful to make clear the places where such ambiguities are likely to occur and the precise nature of the distinctive features involved. Students of English, must be aware of the common sources of structural ambiguity, as well as the precise devices for resolving them.
The following examples will furnish good illustration of the statement. The English verb is usually followed by a noun, with or without determiner. However, if both the noun determiner and the initial function word are missing, such structures may become ambiguous, like the following:
love blossoms in spring where ambiguity is avoided by intonational differences. Compare:
(1) Love blossoms in spring.
(2) Love blossoms in spring!
love is a noun in (1) and a verb in (2).
Ambiguity is quite possible at bast in written English and rapid speech; when, for instance, the two parts of a separable verb are not separated:
(1) She looked' over your papers.
(2) She 'looked over your 'papers.
If these two sentences are read aloud it will become apparent that in (1) the subject was inspecting the paper itself, while in (2) he is looking at something on the other side. Therefore only (1) can be replaced by he looked.
Illustrative examples of ambiguity will be found in patterns with the so-called "dangling participles". In patterns of this type the participle is, in fact, a sentence-modifier, though it may occupy the position at the beginning of the sentence which can also be occupied by a participial modifier or the subject. This gives a structure that is always structurally ambiguous. Lexical incongruity between the participle and the following subject resolves ambiguity. Ambiguous examples are often unintentionally comic or ridiculous.
Proceeding down the road a small village came in sight.
Many ambiguities are never noticed because the various possible meaningsare narrowed down by context.
In they have busy lives without visiting relatives only context can indicate whether visiting relatives is equivalent in meaning to paying visits to relatives or to relatives who are visiting them, and in I looked up the number and I looked up the chimney only the meanings of number and chimney make it clear that up is syntactically a second complement in the first sentence and a preposition followed by its object in the second.
Structural ambiguity often occurs with prepositional phrases which are fairly common modifiers of various types of heads. This is often the case when the prepositional phrase appears medially or finally. However the characteristic intonation contour of the sentence-modifier, frequently supported by lexical indicators, serves to recognise prepositional phrases as such, e. g.:
His faith in her words was unshakable.
As written above, the sentence is surely ambiguous. The distinction between the two possible meanings would be preserved by setting off in her words with commas.
Ambiguity occurs more frequently in connection with constructions appearing in complement, predicate-modifier, or end-adverbial positions than with constructions appearing in front-adverbial subject, or verbal positions. This is primarily due to the fact that there are more positions in the last half of a sentence which may be filled by similar constructions than there are in the first half. The recipient of a message usually has little difficulty in recognising the boundary line between a subject and a following verb-cluster because of the change from "nominal material" to "verbal material". In the complement and the following sectors, however, there are no such clear-cut lines of demarcation between one kind of material and another: a phrase, for example, may occur as a post-nuclear modifier in a noun-cluster in Co position, or as an adjunctional in C2 position, or as a predicate-modifier in H position, or as an adverbial in any one of the three end positions.
Most, if not all, of the cases of structural ambiguity discussed by Ch. Fries in the Structure of English, as well as of those discussed by N. Chomsky in Syntactic Structures, can probably be explained in terms of
uncertainties about positions. Thus, to borrow an example from Ch. Fries, the sentence The new train appeared faster may be assigned to sectors in either of these two ways:
(1) The new train appeared faster.
(2) The new train appeared... faster.
In (1) faster is analysed as an adjunctal word occurring in C1 position; in (2) it is analysed as a predicate-modifier.
But the fact still remains that our ability to analyse the sentence in two different ways does not resolve the ambiguity. The sentence as it stands — without any larger context that might indicate which of the two analyses is the correct one — remains ambiguous.
If a sentence such as "flying planes can be dangerous" 1 is presented in an appropriately constructed context, the listener will interpret it immediately in a unique way, and will fail to detect the ambiguity. In fact, we may reject the second interpretation, when this is pointed out to him, as forced or unnatural (independently of which interpretation we originally selected under contextual pressure). Nevertheless the intuitive knowledge of the language is clearly such that both of the interpretations (corresponding to "flying planes are dangerous" and "flying planes is dangerous") are assigned to the sentence by the grammar internalised in some form. In the case just mentioned, the ambiguity may be fairly transparent. But in such a sentence, for instance, as He had a book stolen grammar provides at least three structural descriptions:
a) He had a book stolen from his car when he left the window open, that is Someone stole a book from his car;
b) He had a book stolen from the library by a professional thief whom he hired to do the job, that is He had someone steal a book;
c) He almost had a book stolen, but they caught him leaving the library with it, that is He had almost succeeded in stealing a book.
Resolving this triple ambiguity in this way we arrange matters in such a way that the linguistic intuition, previously obscured, becomes evident.
To borrow an example from N. Chomsky, we shall consider the following sentences:
(1) / persuaded John to leave.
(2) / expected John to leave.
The first impression of the hearer may be that these sentences receive the same structural analysis. Even fairly careful thought may fail to show him that grammar assigns very different syntactic descriptions to these sentences. However, it is clear that the sentences (1) and (2) are not parallel in structure. The difference can be brought out by consideration of the sentences:
(3) / persuaded a specialist to examine John.
(4) / persuaded John to be examined by a specialist.
(5) / expected a specialist to examine John.
(6) I expected John to be examined by a specialist.
1 See: N. Chomsky. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1965, pp. 21-24
The sentences (5) and (6) are cognitively synonymous: one is true if, and only if, the other is true.
But no variety of even weak paraphrase holds between (3) and (4). Thus (3) can be true or false quite independently of the truth or falsity of (4). Whatever difference of connotation or "topic" or emphasis one may find between (5) and (6) is just the difference that exists between the active sentence a specialist will examine John and its passive counterpart John will be examined by a specialist. This is not at all the case with respect to (3) however. In fact, the underlying deep structure for (1) and (4) must show that John is the direct object of the verb-phrase as well as the grammatical subject of the embedded sentence.
Not less characteristic are patterns with adverbs as sentence-modifiers which are rare in final position, and when they do occur there, ambiguity will be resolved by intonation.
Consider the following examples which will remind you that a change in intonation may change the structural meaning of adverbs:
The student is clearly speaking of his own impression.
He is apparently willing to join us.
The above examples will suffice to show that intonation may indicate rather important differences in structural meaning of the phrases.
Co-ordinators are not always used between members of structures of co-ordination and such sentences may frequently be structurally ambiguous, or at least potentially so. In speech, however, there are prosodic patterns which clearly distinguish the various types of construction. Consider the following sentence:
Let me introduce my friend a doctor and a scientist.
If we disregard prosody (and punctuation) this has at least three possible meanings.
An utterance does not necessarily become understandable even when all its vowels, consonants, and stress patterns have been recognised. It is still necessary to recognise where the boundaries fall. A typical pair of sentences is "He will act, roughly in the same manner", and He will act roughly, in the same manner. In presenting these two sentences in writing, roughly is assigned to what follows or what precedes by the position of the comma. In speech, the two are equally distinct and in no danger of confusion. The position of the boundary is signalled by elements in the sound system, which are imperfectly represented in writing by punctuation marks. These boundary signals are generally called junctures. 1
There is a close parallel to such developments in other languages.
Here are a few typical examples of structural ambiguity in noun-phrases with the possessive case in Russian and Ukrainian: фотография Петрова, for instance, has three possible contextual meanings:
(a) the photo belongs to Petrov;
(b) Petrov has taken the photo(graph) of smb.;
(c) Petrov is portrayed on the photo.
1 See: W. N. Francis. The Structure of American English. New York, 1958. 232
Structural homonymy of prepositional noun-phrases is also a common occurrence.
Он сделает это в два часа may mean either (1) at 2 o'clock or (2) in two hours 1.
Phrases with the preposition про may express object and adverbial relations, e. g. He про нас писано may mean:
(1) He о нас писано.
(2) He для нас писано. Ukrainian:
(1) Читайте тільки про себе (не вголос).
(2) Читайте тільки про себе (а не про когось іншого).
Кувшин с цветами may mean: (а) кувшин и цветы; (b) кувшин, на котором нарисованы цветы; (с) в кувшине находятся цветы.
Compare for illustration the German sentence Das ist natürlich genug which may be an instance of two different structures:
(a) that's natural enough;
(b) that's naturally enough.
Revision Material
1. The syntactic structure of any language is a system constituted by organically related levels. Comment on the hierarchical intra-level relationship of syntactic units.
2. Be ready to discuss different approaches to the study of syntax:
a) traditional syntactic theory;
b) structural syntactic theories;
c) transformational syntax.
3. Comment on oppositional relationship of syntactic units.
4. Give comments on paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations in syntax.
5. On what assumptions can syntactic paradigms be built?
6. Be ready to discuss the statement that the division into parts of speech and the division into parts of the sentence are organically related.
7. Comment on two main types of subject that are opposed to each other in terms of content.
8. Comment on predication as a structure with the verb or verb- phrase at its core.
9. Give comments on oppositional relations between the principal and secondary parts of the sentence.
10. What do we mean by textlinguistics?
11. Give comments on discourse analysis of supra-phrasal unities.
12. Distinguish between "mentalistic" and "mechanistic" approaches to syntactic analysis.
13. What do we mean by "deep grammar" analysis?
14. Be ready to discuss grammatical ambiguity. Give a few examples of constructional homonymity. Make comparison with other languages.
15. Illustrate the statement that many ambiguities are never noticed because the various possible meanings are narrowed down by context.
1 See: A. M. Пешковский. Русский синтаксис в научном освещении. М., 1956, р. 306.
Chapter XI
PHRASE-STRUCTURE
The ways in which word-combinations (phrases) as non-communicative units are constituted may be described as "Minor" Syntax in contrast to "Major" Syntax dealing with linguistic units of communicative value.
The syntactical description of any language is facilitated by isolating certain recurrent units of expression and examining their distribution in contexts.
English syntax is a many-layered organisation of relatively few types of its basic units. A twofold or binary structure is one of the most striking things about its grammatical organisation.
According to the ways in which phrases are used and constituted, two main types of English phrases can be distinguished: headed(endocentric) and non-headed(exocentric).
The terms "endocentric" and "exocentric" for syntactic constructions were introduced by L. Bloomfield.
"Every syntactic construction shows us two (or sometimes more) free forms combined in a phrase, which we may call the resultant phrase. The resultant phrase may belong to a form-class other than that of any constituent. For instance, John ran is neither a nominative expression (like John) nor a finite verb expression (like ran). Therefore we say that English actor-action construction is exocentric: the resultant phrase belongs to the form-class of no immediate constituent. On the other hand, the resultant phrase may belong to the same form-class as one (or more) of the constituents. For instance, poor John is a proper-noun expression, and so is the constituent John; the forms John and poor have, on the whole, the same functions. Accordingly we say that the English character-substance construction (as in poor John, fresh milk and the like) is an endocentric construction" 1.
Headed phrases have this peculiarity: all the grammatical functions open to them as phrases can also be exercised by one expression within them. They may be regarded as expansions of this expression, called the head of the group and it is possible to substitute the head for the group or the group for the head within the same grammatical phrase (i. e. in the same context) without causing any formal dislocation of the overall grammatical structure. For instance, in fresh fruit is good the headed
1 L. Bloomfield. Language. New York, 1969, p. 194.
word-group fresh fruit serves as subject; in I like fresh fruit, it serves as objective complement. If we substitute the head expression fruit for fresh fruit in either case, the grammatical frame subject, verb, complement will remain formally undisturbed.
Fresh fruit is good. Fruit is good. I like fresh fruit. Similarly: I like fruit.
All this nice fresh fruit is good. Fruit is good. Singing songs is fun. Singing is fun. I like singing songs. I like singing.
In these sets of examples, the head expression fruit and singing are freely substitutable grammatically for the word-groups of which they are constituents. In both cases, then, the italicised word-groups are headed groups.
Syntactic relations may be signalled by the following devices:
a) Word-order, i. e. the position of words relative to each other in the utterance.
b) Prosody-combinations of patterns of pitch, stress and juncture. Patterns of pitches and terminal junctures are called intonation patterns; patterns of stresses and internal junctures are often referred to as super- fixes.
c) Function words — words with little or no lexical meaning which are used in combining words into larger structures (prepositions, con- junctions,relative pronouns).
d) Inflections which adapt words to fit varying structural positions without changing their lexical meaning or part of speech.
e) Punctuation in writing.
It seems practical to classify phrases according to the character of their syntactical arrangement. We shall thus distinguish: 1) subordinate phrases, 2) co-ordinate phrases and 3) predicative (or "nexus") phrases. Every structure may be divided into its immediate constituents:
1) In terms of grammatical organisation, subordinate phrasesare binary structures in which one of the members is syntactically the leading element of the phrase. No matter how complicated this twofold or binary structure may be, it can always be divided into two immediate constituents, one functioning as head and the other as modifier.
Adjuncts serve to describe, to qualify, to select, to complete, to extend or in some other way to affect the meaning of the head, e. g.: fresh air, stone wall, writing a letter, perfectly right, awfully tired, etc.
2) Co-ordinate phrasesconsist of two or more syntactically equivalent units joined in a cluster which functions as a single unit. The units so joined may be any of the parts of speech or more complex structures taking part in grammatical organisation. The joining may be accomplished
by word order and prosody alone, or with the help of conjunctions, e. g.: girls and boys, pins and needles, sooner or later, now and then, etc. 3) Predicative (or "nexus") phrases are such structures in which the syntactic functions of the component' parts differ from the function of the phrase, as a whole , e. g.: the lesson over, circumstances permitting, this done, for them to come, on him to do, etc.
SUBORDINATE PHRASES
Subordinate phrases may be best enumerated when we arrange them according to their leading member: noun phrases, adjectival phrases, verb phrases, adverbial phrases, pronominal phrases (pronominal phrases are most suitably included in the noun or adjective groups to which they are evident parallels). As has been pointed out, their immediate constituents are head word and modifier (adjunct). The term head word (head) means the word that is modified.
Noun-Phrases
In terms of position of the attributive adjunct, noun-phrases may be classified into; 1) phrases with preposed modifier; 2) phrases with postposed modifier.
Phrases with Preposed Modifier
In noun-phrases with preposed modifiers we generally find adjectives, pronouns, numerals, participles, gerunds and nouns in the possessive case. Here belongs also premodification of nouns by nouns (so-called noun-adjunct-groups).
With his own hands he put flowers about his little house-boat and equipped the punt in which, after lunch, he proposed to take them on the river. (Galsworthy)
Many a time had he tried to think that in old days of thwarted merrier life; and he always failed. (Galsworthy)
Val had just changed out of riding clothes and was on his way to the fire — a bookmaker's in Cornmarket. (Galsworthy)
Jolly Forsyte was strolling down High Street, Oxford, on a November afternoon. (Galsworthy)
After a few morning consultations, with the pleasant prospect of no surgery in the evening Andrew went on his round. (Cronin)
And beneath it lay the family's Christmas treat — three small oranges, (Cronin)
A preposed determinant may be extended only by an adverb, e. g.:
That was a typically French way to furnish a room. '
In premodification of nouns by nouns the noun-adjunct may be extended by words of different parts of speech, e. g.: long playing micro-groove full frequency range recording.
The -s is appended to a group of words if it forms a sense-unit, e. g.: the man of property's daughter, Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, the King of Denmark's court.
The division into immediate constituents in cases like the man of
property's daughter is notthe man || of property's, but the man of property's.
Postposition of adjectives occurs in some fixed phrases, e. g.:
mother dear the university proper
the president elect a battle royal
time immemorial the first person singular
Postpositive position is often natural for adjectival units which themselves contain postpositive modifiers of their own and even for some which contain only postpositive modifiers
applicants desirous of personal interviews a wall six feet high rooms large enough
Noun-Adjunct Groups
English nominals presented by N + N structures are one of the most striking features about the grammatical organisation of English.
Noun-adjunct groups consisting of "nounal modifier" plus "nominal head" result from different kind of transformational shifts. Premodification of nouns by nouns can signal a striking variety of meanings. The grammar of English nominalisations presents here a major point of linguistic interest.
In order to appreciate how very wide the variety of grammatical meaning in nominal compounds may be, consider the following miscellaneous examples:
world peace (= peace all over the world)
table lamp (= a lamp for tables)
sheep dog (= a dog which herds sheep)
prairie dog (= a dog which inhabits the
prairie)
silver box (= a box made of silver)
field worker (= a worker works in the field)
chair legs (= the legs of the chair)
night owl (= an owl which flies at night)
river sand (= sand from the river)
soap salesman (= the salesman sells soap)
school child (= the child goes to school)
Noun-groups of this type are fairly common and new specimens are constantly being formed.
Since nominal compounds usually consist of only two constituents and incorporate the most general grammatical relations in the language, there are unusually great opportunities for grammatical ambiguity in this kind of binary structures.
To make our point clear, we shall give a number of interesting ambiguities and variations in interpreting them.
Thus, for instance, in its ordinary use the noun-phrase snake poison
is interpreted to have the same structure as that of snake oil, snake track,
etc., і. e. it is derived from some expression like poison from a snake, or ultimately perhaps from some kernel-sentence such as: The snake gives poison. However it could also be interpreted to be the same in structure as snake venom, snakehead, snakeblood, etc., i. e. to be more like snake's poison or poison of a snake, say from some sentence as: The snake has the poison.1
But these do not exhaust the possibilities, though the latter two are probably the way the expression is commonly used, the first when meaning "poisonous substance made from snake venom".
Notice also the possible contrast among snake flesh, snake meat, and snake food: "flesh of a snake","meat from a snake", and "food for a snake". The formal characteristics within the structure of various noun-adjunct groups provide significant contrast to distinguish certain of the meaning that attach to «modifier» relation.
Noun-adjunct groups are often derived from already generated post-nominal participial or gerundive modifiers, e. g,:
The well yields oil
...well which yields oil...
...well yielding oil...
...oil-yielding well...
...oil well...
Observe the significant contrast in the following pairs of noun-adjunct groups:
a baby sister a mother country
a baby sitter a mother complex
a woman lawyer a toy cupboard
a woman hater a toy cupboard a candy cane a candy store
Each of these units contains a modifying noun and a head noun, and the modifying noun precedes its head. When the modifying noun has the essentially descriptive force of an adjective, the head noun normally has phrase stress. In a baby sister the sister is a baby, in a candy cane the cane is candy. When the modifying noun has relationship to its head, the modifying noun rather than the head normally has phrase stress. Thus in a baby sitter the sitter is not a baby but a sitter with babies, and in a candy store the store is not candy but sells candy. When it is used of a cupboard that is itself a toy, a toy cupboard has phrase stress on cupboard; when it is used of a cupboard which is not itself a toy but is used as a place for toys, the same sequence has phrase stress on toy.
The pattern of stress normally indicates the nature of the "modifier" relationship. Compare also the following:
growing children — growing pains
a living soul — living conditions the waiting mother — the waiting room
1 See: R. B. Lees. The Grammar of English Nominalisations. 5th Ed. the Hague, 1968, p. 122.
Growing children are children that are growing, but growing pains are the pains of growing.
Instances are not few when the nominalised verb appears as head of the structure the transform may be generated directly from the genitive case or the of-phrase periphrasis, e. g.:
The population grows ... population's growth ... growth of the population ... population growth
The deletion of a post-nominal modifier along with the preposition gives such derivations as, for instance:
The owl flies at night ... owl which flies at night ... owl flying at night ... night owl
An attempt to tabulate the underlying grammatical relations observed in noun-adjunct groups will help to distinguish significant contrasts in their meaning:
1) Subject-predicate relations: graduate-student, class struggle, student failure, temperature change, weather change, blood pressure, etc.
Closely related to such nominals are formations like queen bee, mother earth, girl draftsman, lady journalist, man friend, woman author, woman scientist, woman writer, etc. where the relation between the two nouns is essentially different. Viewed in their combination, the two elements in such patterns are syntactically equal, each of the two nouns can function to name a person or thing denoted by a whole pattern. This is made abundantly clear by the simplest transformational analysis: the girl draftsman → the girl is a draftsman; the woman scientist → → the woman is a scientist.
2) Object relations:
a) body nourishment, coal production, chemistry student, carpet sweeper, health service, ink transfer, money economy, package delivery, product control, potato peeler, rug sale, safety feeling, truck driver, war talk, woman hater, etc.;
b) "with"-nominals (the modifying noun denotes instrumental relations), e. g.: acid treatment, eye view, oil painting, etc.;
c) the qualitative genitive or the of-phrase periphrasis, e. g.: child psychology, fellow feeling, mother wit, mother heart, science degree, etc. (Cf. Syn.: child psychology — child's psychology — the psychology of a child — childish psychology);
d) the of-phrase periphrasis (the modifying noun denotes the material of which a thing is made), e. g.:
brick house, gold watch, iron bridge, oak table, paper bag, rubber coat, silver box, stone wall, etc.
3) Adverbial relations of time: day shift, night shift, morning star, morning exercises, spring time, spring term, summer vacation, summer sunshine, September sun, winter vacation, winter afternoon, etc.
4) Adverbial relations of place: world peace, country air, chimney swallows, England tour, nursery door, river house, study window, ground water, etc.
5) Adverbial relations of comparison: button eyes, eagle eye, hawk nose, iron nerves, lost dog look, swallow dive, etc.
6) Adverbial relations of purpose: bath robe, export products, peace movement, resistance fighters, tooth brush, writing table, walking stick, etc.
It is important to remember that the modifying noun is usually marked by a stronger stress than the head.
The semantic relations which underlie such nominals present certain difficulties of analysis.
The meaning of the modifying noun is often signalled by the lexical meaning of the head word. Compare the following: river house, river margin, river sand; cotton dress, cotton production, cotton prices; war production, war talk, war years; oak leaves, oak tables; medicine smell, medicine bottle.
A clue concerning the meaning of the modifier may also be found in the grammatical nature of the noun modified. Thus, for instance, when the second element is a verbal noun made from an intransitive verb, the first element will often denote the doer of the action, e. g.: class struggle, student failure, etc. If the second element is a verbal noun made from a transitive verb (which is fairly common), the first element will generally denote the object of the action, e. g.: product control, production increase, safety feeling, rug sale, coal production, etc.
If the second element denotes a person or an animal, the first element may denote gender, e. g.: woman writer, man servant, bull elephant, cow elephant.
In cases when the lexical meaning of the words admits either interpretation without lexico-grammatical incongruity, ambiguity is prevented in actual speech by contrast in intonation patterns. Thus, for instance, a dancing girl with rise of pitch and primary stress both on the headword girl marks dancing as a present participle: "a girl performing the act of dancing". But a dancing girl, with primary stress and rise in pitch both on the modifier dancing, identifies dancing as a verbal noun and signals the meaning "a dancer" — танцівниця.
The contrast of meaning as tied to a particular intonation pattern is fairly common and is a good example of the role that prosody plays in grammar. Other examples are:
a 'dust 'mop (a mop composed a'dust mop (a mop used for dust-
of dust) ing)
a 'mad 'doctor (a doctor who a 'mad doctor (a psychiatrist) is mad)
a 'French 'teacher (a teacher a 'French teacher (a teacher of
French by nationality) the French language).
In some instances it is possible to carry the variation in stress patterns through a series of three, all correlated with differences in meaning:
a 'blackbird's nest (= nest of a blackbird)
a black 'bird's nest (= bird's nest which is black)
a black bird's 'nest (= nest of a black-coloured bird)
Premodification is widely current in present-day scientific usage where, we can say with little fear of exaggeration, such patterns have not got their equals.
The multifarious use of nominals in scientific English presents special difficulties. It is in this area of English grammar that the student's linguistic knowledge is often severely put to the test.
Different correlations of nouns and arrangements of their order present special interest in cases where such nominals consist not of two but three, four and even five elements.
Examine the following:
hydraulic work carriage traverse speed regulating valve — клапан, що регулює швидкість гідравлічного переміщення робочої каретки;
a high grade paraffin base straight mineral lubricating oil — високосортне прямої конки мінеральне мастило на парафіновій основі;
room temperature neutron bombardment effects — явища, викликані бомбардуванням нейтронами при кімнатній температурі;
long-playing microgroove full frequency range recording — мікрозапис довгограючих пластинок з повним діапазоном частот;
cabin-pressure regulator air valve lever — важіль пневматичного клапана регулятора тиску (повітря) в кабіні.
The high frequency value of such nominals in the language of science is clear without special frequency counts.
When a head noun includes several modifiers of different sorts, the result is often rather a complex thing. But in point of fact, it is always organised along strict and precise lines. The most important thing about such an adjunct-group is that unless it contains structures of coordination, it consists not of a series of parallel modifiers but of a series of structures of modification one within the other, e. g.:
hydraulic work carriage traverse speed regulating valve — клапан що регулює швидкість гідравлічного переміщення робочої каретки.
English nominalisation has given large numbers of such formations as approach compounding when the two nouns express a single idea, making up a special term in terminology or a stock-phrase in professional vocabulary: The United Nations Organisation, Security Council, Labour party, labour movement, face value, horse power, coal mine, mother oil, Trade Union, trade balance, etc.
In phraseology: mother earth, swan song, Vanity Fair, vanity bag, brain storm, brain wave, chair days ("old age"), tragedy king ("an actor playing the part of the king in a tragedy" ), toy dog('la little dog", болонка).
Some nominals fluctuate in spelling and may be written solid, hyphened or separate, e. g.:
apple tree — apple-tree — appletree brain storm — brain-storm — brainstorm brain wave — brain-wave
The direction of modification structures can have a special stylistic value. Involving different classes of nouns into modification structures of that type has long become effective for stylistic purposes. It is fairly common in Shakespearean language where numerous word-groups of this kind furnish vivid examples of the metaphoric use of the premodifying noun, as in: From Fortune with her Juory hand to her ("Timon of Athen"); ... two siluer currents when they joyne ("King John")1.