Semantic structure of the S.

It is a model of the meaning of the S. Semantically a clause (simple S) is a pattern of experience presented as a situational type. Every situation includes some processes, some participants, some circumstances & some attributes of the participants. These elements find their expressions via elements of the semantic structures of the S:

process → semantic predicates (не сказуемое), may be of different types: material (he made a table), mental (He created a poem), relational (The house belongs to me).

participants → arguments (deep cases = semantic cases) nomnal elements of the semantic structure, name participants. The sem predicate predetermines the number & types of sem cases. Types of arguments (Fillmore): 1) agent- does the action, usu animate: Sam planted a tree. 2) Object – smth affected by the action Tom broke the window 3) patient smbd affected by the action 4) instrument He opened the door with the key 5) beneficiary smbd who gains (for) 6) factity (result) smth that comes into being as a result of the action & didn’t exist before 7) force элементатив) the wind broke the window 8) localty some place experienced as a substance Minsk is a big city 9) temporative some moment or period of time experienced as a substance Yesterday was a busy day.

The sem structure of the S was 1^st described by Fillmore in his book ‘The Case for Case’. The 2 main components of the sem structure are: modality – the features of mood, tense, aspect, negation… relating to the S as a whole (not morphological modality); proposition – a tenseless set of relationship . The proposition is constituted by the sem predicate & a set of nominative elements called arguments. S = modality + proposition; P = V +n1+n2+n3 (nominal elements)

28. Communicative structure of the S. Functional Sentence Perspective. (= ADS)

Alongside of the grammatical division of the sentence into parts naming the basic elements (i.e. the Subject, the Predicate, the Object, the Attribute, the Adverbial Modifier) there exists the so-called Actual Division of the Sentence. It has been recently put forward in theoretical linguistics. The purpose of the ADS is to reveal the significance of the sentence parts from the point of view of their actual informative role in an utterance. In other words, the ADS characterizes the parts of the sentence from the point of view the semantic contribution they make to the total information conveyed by the sentence. The ADS exposes its informative perspective. The main components of the ADS are: the theme and the rheme.

The theme expresses the starting point of communication, i.e. it denotes an object about which smth is reported. The rheme expresses the central informative part of the communication, i.e. the communication center of the sentence.

The theme may or may not coincide with the subject-group of the sentence. The rheme may or may not coincide with the predicate group of the sentence. Ex.: They bicycled together last summer. The elm trees were just beginning to turn green.

The following sentences in which the correlation between the nominative and ADS is reverse.

Ex.: Down the frozen river came a sledge drawn by dogs. There was a parking area in the middle of the big square.

The ADS is fully expressed only in a concrete context of speech. That’s why it is sometimes referred to as the contextual division of the S.

Ex.: Driffield accompanied Mrs. Traffold to the door. Taken in isolation, presents an example of the so-called direct ADS: its subject coincides with the theme, and its predicate - with the rheme.

If put into a certain context the sentence may change its direct ADS into the inverted one: the subject expresses the rheme, and the predicate - the theme:

Ex.: Is it true that Gasper Gibbons accompanied her to the door? - Nothing of the kind: Driffield accompanied Mrs. Traffold to the door, not Gibbons.

The identification of the rheme is the main problem since any utterance is produced for the sake of conveying to the listener the meaningful content expressed by the rheme.

The formal means of expressing the distinction between the theme and the rheme are represented by the following structural elements of language:

(a) Special word order (inversion)

Ex.: On the right was a small public park with a fountain.

(b) Special intonation contours (rhematic accent).

Ex.: Go in. I'll tell Ted, you are here.

Ex.: It was Bosinney, who first noticed her. There was no real misunderstanding between Eric and Haviland.

(d) Syntactic patterns of contrastive complexes Ex.: Providing information, not thinking is what computers are capable for.

(e) Constructions with articles and other determiners Ex. The boy took us to the physics classroom. vs A boy took us to the physics classroom. This map will do. vs Any map will do.

(f) Constructions with intensifying particles, when the context may help us to identify the rheme.

Ex.: Marry has planted the flowers. I hope Mother has already planted the flowers. I am sure Mary has already planted the flowers.

Functional Sentence Perspective. (= ADS)

So far we have discussed the sentence as a unit of the 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 constituents are 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 (It is he, 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 à the first steps were taken by UNESCO.

2) The use of conversives – 20 people died in a crush. à the crush killed 20 people.

3) The use of the personal subject and the nominal predicate – it was silent in the room à 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.

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Transformational model.	\|	Word Order

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