LECTURES IN THE ENGLISH THEORETICAL GRAMMAR

INTRODUCTION
The Meanings of Grammar
The Grammatical Structure of Language.
Main Types of Grammar.
Methods of Linguistic Investigation.

The 1st thing meant by “grammar” is “the set of formal patterns in which the words of a language are arranged in order to convey larger meanings.”

The 2nd sense in which the people use the word “grammar” is linguistic etiquette”. The word “grammar” to the ordinary person in English speaking countries has the meaning of “good or bad English”.

The 3-d meaning of grammar is the branch of linguistic science which is concerned with the description, analysis, and formularization of formal language patterns.

So the 3 meanings of the term “grammar” are:
Grammar I – a form of behavior;
Grammar II – a branch of etiquette;
Grammar III - a field of study, a science.

Grammar as a branch of linguistic science studies the grammatical structure of a language.
The term “structure” suggests an inherent similarity between all levels of linguistic organization. The grammatical structure exists as an objective reality and does not depend on the will of people.

These are :
(1) simplicity,
(2) consistency,
(3) completeness, and
(4) usefulness for predicting the behavior of phenomena

Linguistics
Form
Meaning
Society
Communication
Mind
Prescriptive
Descriptive
Functional
Structural
Pragmatics
Semantics
Cognitive
Anthropological
Social
Conversation analysis
Discourse analysis
Stylistics
Psycholinguistics
Neurolinguistics
Mentalism
“Linguistic Star”

The levels of Language Structure.

The basic units of language structure are:
the phoneme,
the morpheme,
the word,
the phrase, and
the sentence.

The basic units
____________________________________________________________ Text
______________________________________________________
Sentence
What feeling did you experience? - Awe
______________________________________________
Phrase / Word combination
_________________________________________
Word awe
_______________________________
Morpheme aw-ful
__________________________
Phoneme [o:] ______________________

A grammatical category (GC)
Grammatical categories may be defined as generalized grammatical meanings, characteristic of a certain language, that are expressed by changes in the forms of words and combinations of words in sentences.

The notion of GC applies to the plane of content of morphological paradigmatic units;
It refers to grammatical meaning as a general notion;
It does not nominate things but expresses relations, that is why it has to be studied in terms of oppositions;
GCs of a language represent a realization of universal categories produced by human thinking in a set of interrelated forms organized in oppositions;
GCs are not uniform; they vary in accordance with the part of speech they belong to and the meaning they express;
The expression of GCs in a language is based upon close interrelation between their forms (exponents) and the meaning they convey.

TYPES OF GRAMMAR
Prescriptive Grammar
Descriptive grammar
Contrastive grammar
Historical grammar
Comparative grammar
General grammar
Functional grammar
Structural grammar
Transformational generative grammar

Nonsense
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mymsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
( L.Carrall)

Translations
Варкалось. Хливкие шорьки
Пырялись по наве,
И хрюкотали зелюки,
Как мюмзики в мове.
(Н.Демурова)

Сверкалось. Скойкие сюды
Волчились у развел.
Дрожали в лужасе грозды,
И крюх засвирепел. (Вл.Орел)

Methods of Linguistic Investigation:
the Reed-Kellog diagrams
The sentence The Diagram
Horses run. Horses │ run.
He soon arrived. He │arrived.
The two men left men│ left
for the garage.

The sentence type subject + verb + object
Bakers │ make ‌‌ bread
The rancher sold the (horse). Rancher │ sold | horse.
We saw the (clerk) over the counter. We │ saw | clerk.

A prepositional phrase
He brought the horse to town. He │ brought ׀ horse.
to
town

Subject + Verb + Indirect object + direct object
He gave the dog a bone.
He │ gave ׀ bone
dog
He gave a bone to the dog
He │ gave ׀ bone
to
dog

Subject + linking verb + N/Adj/Adv
The horse seems tired.
Horse │ seems \ tired.
b) John is busy.
John │ is \ busy.
c) My father is an engineer.
Father │ is \ engineer.
John became an architect.
John │ became \ architect.

The next diagram feature is the line slanted to the right
They named him president. They │ named / president ׀ him.
The teacher considered him stupid.
Teacher │ considered / stupid ׀ him

Modifiers are slung below the line
The three new hounds quickly found the scent.
Hounds │ found ׀ scent
the three new quickly the

The plot was clear before the beginning of the first commercial
Plot │ was \ clear
the before
beginning
the of
commercial
the first

Analysis by Immediate Constituents
Usually the train comes on time.
Train │ comes____________
the usually on
time
Usually | the train comes on time.
Modification

Modification
Most of the time | the snow melts within a day
When she heard that, | she slammed the door.

Predication
The man | walked in.
The old woman in the gray suit | walked over to the counter

Example
Usually he walked
Predication
Modification

A structure of subordination
whenever he │ comes to town
Predication
Subordination
Subordinating conjunctions are: after, although, because, before, until, since, after, when, whenever

Prepositional Phrase
in │ the car that John bought
Subordination
to │ come out of practice
Subordination

A Noun Phrase 1
The old red car │ in the garage with the
Modification rusted
cylinders
Modification

Noun Phrase 2
The old red car in the garage│with
the new cement
floor
Modification
Subordination
Modification

Noun Phrase 3
the old red │ car in the garage
Modification Modification
Modification
Modifucation

Pre-Verbal Modifiers
quickly │ ran to the house
modification

Modifiers after the verb
usually awoke │ when he heard her voice
Modification
Modification

A complement of the verb
John hit the ball.
He gave John the ball
A complement is a word or phrase that completes the meaning of the verb

Complements = modifiers
Gave │ John the ball
complementation
complementation

Hit │ the ball hard
Complementation
Modification

The Sentence Diagram
This car was built by union │ labor
Modification
Subordination Modification
Modification
Predication

The first of the men left his jacket in the car

Transformational Generative Grammar (TGG)
Grammar is a set of rules for forming sentences. (N.Chomsky)
A grammar produces or generates sentences, hence the term generative.

The term ‘transformation’ is borrowed from mathematics where it refers to a process of altering the form of an expression without altering its value.
The language-generative rules are summarized in symbolic formulas.

Sentence structure
S → NP + VP
VP → Aux + MV
{ V }
MV → { be + Pred }
Vint.
V → Vtr. + NP
Vcomp. + Comp.

The man hit the ball.
S → NP +VP
VP → Vt +NP
NP → Art + N
Vt → hit
Art → the
N → man, ball

Kernel sentences are the basic, elementary sentences of the language, the stuff from which all else is made. (P.Roberts)
Kernal sentences are simple declarative sentences with the verb in the active voice which form the backbone of the language.

Patterns of kernel sentences
NvV– John came.
NvVPN – John looked at Mary
NvVN – John saw Mary.
N is N – John is a teacher
N is A – John is angry
N is PN – John is in bed
N is D – John is out

Transforms
Transforms are all other sentences which are derived from kernel sentences by means of transformations. Transforms retain their grammatical relations, but have an additional grammatical meaning of their own. For example, the sentence “Is he a student?” in a transform derived from the kernel sentence “He is a student”.

Cases of structural homonymy
“John is easy to please.”
“John is eager to please”

John is eager to please
John is eager to V
→ John is eager to please
(X)
John pleases X

John is easy to please.
It is easy
→ It is easy (for X) to please
John.
→ John is easy to please.
X pleases John

“Flying planes can be dangerous”
Planes fly. → Flying planes can be dangerous.
They are dangerous.
He flies planes. → Flying planes can be
dangerous.
This is dangerous

MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX
Morphology is defined as that part of grammar which treats of the parts of speech and their inflexion, that is: the forms of tense, mood, etc. of verbs, the forms of degrees of comparison of adjectives, etc.

Syntax
is usually defined as that part of grammar, which treats of the rules according to which words are connected in the sentence, and also of various types of sentences, their structure and meaning.

Morphemes
- the smallest meaningful elements into which words can be analyzed
Grammatical morphemes are scarce in English due to the prevalence of analytical or zero ending formation.

form-building (morphological) morphemes (e.g.: -ed of the Past) as opposed to
word-building (lexical) ones (e.g.: -ment in government, -less in jobless)

I.B.Khlebnikova suggests the theory according to which the morphemes always form part of a grammeme (word-form). A form-building morpheme may be defined as an element of the word which signals the kind of grammatical meaning attached to it by the presence of the morpheme.

The morpheme itself has a purely relational grammatical meaning which is revealed only by contrast with some other morpheme or grammeme which exposes a contrastive grammatical meaning. A morpheme as a unit of grammar is an exponent of a grammatical category (or grammatical meaning).

The term ‘grammeme’ presents an isolated unit, not part of the word. It is a carrier of grammatical information. When we speak of a word as a grammeme, we concentrate on the kind of grammatical information it carries, e.g.: the grammeme speaks shows the Present Tense 3d person singular.

PARTS OF SPEECH
Greek grammarians - 3 parts of speech - names, sayings, and joinings or linkings.
Latin grammarian Varro - 4 parts of speech: words with cases (nouns), words with tenses (verbs), wor­ds with both cases and tenses (participles) and words with neither cases nor tenses (particles).

The earliest English grammars
Parts of speech:
Declinable - nouns, pronouns, verbs and participles
Indeclinable - adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections

Ben Jonson - the article as the 9th part of speech.
J. Brightland - 4 parts of speech: names (i.e. nouns), qualities (i.e. adjectives), affirmations (i.e. verbs) and particles

H. Sweet
Three main features characterizing the parts of speech, namely meaning, form and function,

Two main groups
declinable
noun-words: noun, noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infini­tive, gerund,
adjective-words: adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-numeral, participles.
verb: finite verb, verbals (infinitive, gerund, parti­ciples)

indeclinable (particles):
adverb,
preposition,
conjunction,
interjection.

O. Jespersen
5 word-classes:
(1) Substantives (including proper nouns).
(2) Adjectives.
(3) Pronouns (including numerals and pronominal adverbs).
(4) Verbs (with doubts as to the inclusion of "verbids").
(5) Particles

“The Three Ranks” Theory
an extremely hot weather
a furiously barking dog
weather, dog - primary
hot, barking - secondary
extremely, furiously - tertiary

J.C. Nesfield's grammar
“Words are classified according to the purpose that they are used for and every such class is called a Part of Speech.”

A Noun is a word used for naming some person or thing.
A Pronoun is a word used instead of a noun or noun-equivalent.
An Adjective is a word used to qualify a noun.
A Verb is a word used for saying some­thing about some person or thing.
A Preposition is a word placed before a noun or noun-equivalent to show in what relation the person or thing denoted by the noun stands to something else.

(6) A Conjunction is a word used to join words or phrases together, or one clause to another clause.
(7) An Adverb is a word used to qualify any part of speech except a noun or pronouns.
(8) An Interjection is a word or "sound” thrown into a sentence to express some feeling of the mind.

Ch. Fries
Parts of speech are "form-classes” which are "functioning patterns" and they are distinguished by their "structural meaning" He distinguishes 4 form-classes (1, 2, 3, 4) and 15 function words (A....0).

Words of Class I:
Frame A:
The concert was good
food
coffee

Frame B:
The clerk remembered the tax
Husband food
Woman coffee

Frame C:
The team went there.
husband
woman

WORDS OF CLASS II
Class I Class II
The___ is / was good
_____ s are / were
seems / seemed

WORDS OF CLASS 3:
class class class class
3 1 2 3
(The) good ____(s) is / was good
large large

WORDS OF CLASS 4:
class class class class class
3 1 2 3 4
(The) __ ____(s) is / was ____ there
here
always

‘Function words’
Group A: no, your, both, few, Jon’s, one, four, most, that, etc.
Group B: get, keep, etc.
Group C: not.
Group D : very good – quite, awfully, most, rather, etc.
Group E: and, but, or, not, nor, rather than

Group F: the position of at.
Group G: do (does, did).
Group H: there (in there is…).
Group I: when (why, where, how).
Group J: whenever, so, and, but, since, etc. Group K: well, oh, now, why
Group L: with yes and no.
Group M: look, say, listen.
Group N – please.
Group O – let’s (let us).

The general current definition of parts of speech places them as lexico-grammatical word-classes which are characterized by a general abstract grammatical meaning expressed in certain grammatical markers.

3 principles
meaning,
form,
function.

Meaning
“the meaning common to all the words of the given class and constituting its essence.”

By form
The morphological characteristics of a type of word is meant.

By function
the syntactical properties of a type of word are meant

Notional and Functional P.of S.
Ilyish, B.A.
Kobrina, N.A., Korneeva E.A.
Blokh, M.Y.
Ivanova, I.P., B.B.Burlakova, and G.G.Pocheptsov

NOUNS
the categorical meaning of substance ("thingness");
the changeable forms of number and case;
the substantive functions in the sentence

M.Y.Blokh: 4 subclasses
Noun
proper common
count. uncount.
animate inanimate human non-human

Traditional semantic characteristics of all the nouns:
Nouns
common Proper
count uncount Concrete Abstract material abstaract
Animate Inanimate
collect.

Morphological composition
Simple: one-root morpheme
Derived: one-root morph. + der.affixes
Compound: 2 or more stems

Noun: Number.
The category of number is expressed by the opposition of the plural form of the noun to the singular form of the noun.
dog-dogs, clock-clocks, box-boxes

Noun: CASE.
Grammatical case is the relation in which one noun (or pronoun) stands to some other word in the sentence, or the form of the noun (or pronoun) which shows that relation
(C.E.Eckersley and J.M.Eckerslev').

Old English - 5 cases:
Nominative,
Vocative,
Accusitive,
Genetive and
Dative

“Theory of the positional cases".
The nominative case (subject to a verb: Rain falls.
The vocative case (address): Are you coming, my friend?
The dative case (in­direct object to a verb): I gave John a penny.
The accusative case (direct object and also object to a preposition): The man rode a fine horse.

“Theory of prepositional cases"
the "dative case" (to + Noun, for + Noun) and
the "genitive" case (of + Noun).
These prepositions, according to G.Curme, are "inflexional prepositions", i.e. grammatical elements equivalent to case-forms.

Limited case theory
2 cases in English, one of them featured and the other one unfeatured.
H.Sweet, O.Jespersen, A.I.Smirnitsky, L.S. Barkhudarov and others.

The common case is unmarked, it has no inflexion (zero inflection) and its meaning is very general.
The genitive case is marked by the apostrophe s ('s).

Genitive Case
The main modifications of this meaning are: 1. The idea of belonging: John's coat, Mary's car;
2. Different kinds of relations, such as:
relation of the whole to its parts: John's leg; the cat's tail;
b) personal or social relations: John's wife, John's friend;

Besides the genitive case can also denote subjective relations: Chekhov's observation = Chekhov observed;
the doctor's arrivals = the doctor arrived;
authorship: Byron's poem; distance.

objective relations: Caesar's murder- Caesar was murdered; measure: an hour's trip; a mile's

Postpositional theory
1) The use of -'s is optional (her brother's, of her brother);
It is used with a limited group of nouns outside which it occurs very seldom.
( 's ) is used both in the singular and in plural (child's, children's) which is not incident to case morphemes; and some other reasons.

Noun: Gender
J.C.Nesfield speaks of 4 genders in English: the Masculine (that denotes a male); the Feminine gender (one that denotes a female); the Common gender (one that denotes either sex); the Neuter gender (one that denotes neither sex, that is something without life).

Masculine and Feminine 3 different ways:
1) By a change of word: boy - girl; cock-hen; uncle-aunt; lord-lady
2) By a change of ending: actor-actress; host-hostess; waiter-waitress.
Peculiar Changes of Ending: hero-heroine; wizard-witch; widower-widow.
3) By placing a word before or after: He-goat; she-goat; land-lord; land-lady

Traditional associations
moon and earth are referred to as feminine, sun as masculine;
the names of vehicles (car, carriage, coach) – feminine;
the names of vessels (ship, boat, steamer, ice-breaker, cruiser, etc.) -feminine;
the names of countries, (not a geographical territory) - feminine

THE ARTICLE
1) Is the article a separate part of speech?
2) It is not clear whether the article is a word or a morpheme;
3) the number of articles in English;
4) the problem of the grammatical meaning of the articles.

The article as a separate part of speech?
E. Kruisinga
O. Jespersen, H.Sweet, G.Curme
H.Poutsma and R.Zandvoort
A.I.Smirnitsky, I.P. Ivanova, V.V. Burlakova, G. Pocheptsov

Is the article a word or a morpheme?
A(n) and the are not devoid of lexical meaning as grammatical word-morphemes are.
Their meanings are not relative. The has the meaning of 'definiteness' not only when opposed to a(n): snow - the snow; books - the books.

The number of articles
3 articles: Indefinite, Definite and Zero
2 articles: Definite and Indefinite

The grammatical meaning
3 functions: morphological, syntactical and semantical.
Morphologically it is used to determine a noun.
Its syntactical function determining the left boarder of attributive word-combination. The main semantic function of the articles is the expression of the 'theme-rheme' division of the text.

THE VERB.
1. 'A verb is a word for saying something about some person or thing';
2. '...the part of speech by which we are able to say what a person or animal or thing is or does or what is done to that animal, person or thing’;
3. ‘... the part of speech that predicates, assists in predication, asks a question and expresses a command.' (C.E. Eckersley).

Characteristic features
Meaning: the verb as a part of speech denotes process or state;
Form: elaborate system of morphological categories;
Function: the predicate or part of it (link verb).

MORPHOLOGICAL COMPOSITION.
simple - to go
derivative - root morpheme + one or more derivational morphemes (prefixes: un-, re- and suffixes: -ify, -ize).
compound - blackmail, undertake
phrasal - to have a smoke, to give up

Regular and Irregular verbs
The regular verbs - suffix -ed added to the stem of the verb to form PIT or Participle II
The irregular verbs are about 250 in number.

Irregular verbs: 8 groups
Verbs changing their root vowel:
begin- began – begun
2. Verbs changing their root vowel
in the past form: fall – fell – fallen
3. Verbs changing the root vowel to the
same vowel: bite – bit - bitten
4. Verbs having the same vowel for the 2-d and 3-d: sell – sold - sold

5. Verbs having the same vowel and some consonant change:
catch – caught – caught;
6. Verbs having the same form for the Inf., the Past Ind., and P II:
cut – cut – cut
7. Suppletive verbs: go – went - gone
8. Verbs of mixed formation:
show – showed - shown

Semantic Classifications
Verbs
Notional Semi – notional
Trans. Intr. Aux. Link-V
Termin. Non-termin. modal

THE CATEGORY OF PERSON
the relation of the action and its doer to the speaker, showing whether the action is performed by the speaker (the 1-st person), someone addressed by the speaker (the 2-nd person) or someone / something other than the speaker or the person addressed (the third person)

THE CATEGORY OF NUMBER
shows whether the action is performed by one or more than one persons or non-persons

THE CATEGORY OF TENSE
a verbal category which reflects the objective category of time and expresses on this background the relations between the time of the action and the time of the utterance. (B.Ilyish)

Number of Tenses
2 Tenses - R.A. Close, O. Jespersen
3 Tenses – Russian linguists
4 Tenses – I.B.Khlebnikova
6 Tenses - ‘‘The New Webster Grammar Guide”

2 TENSES

Forms to indicate the future time
1. George will leave tomorrow.
2. George is going to leave tomorrow.
3. George is to leave tomorrow.
4. George is leaving tomorrow.
5. George leaves tomorrow.

6 Tenses

The English tense can be defined as a category expressing the time relations of an action towards the moment of speaking and the moment of utterance in the oppositions of
Present Future forms
Past Future-in-the Past.

THE CATEGORY OF ASPECT
shows the way or manner in which an action is performed, that is whether the action is perfective, imperfective, momentary, iterative, inchoative, durative etc. It is a system of two-member opposemes such as works - is working; has worked - has been working etc., showing the character of the action

A Category of Semantics
the 'terminate' aspect representing an action as a whole;
the 'ingressive' aspect which points to the beginning of the action;
the 'effective aspect' showing the conclusion of an action;
the 'durative’ aspect presenting an action as continuous;
the 'iterative' aspect.

Tense-Aspect Category
Aspect can not be severed from tense and is its part.

Aspect – A Separate Category
the category of aspect is constituted by the opposition of the continuous aspect and the common aspect
the aspect of a verb deals with the development of the action

THE CATEGORY OF CORRELATON
a peculiar tense category;
a peculiar aspect category; the "tense-aspect" category;
a separate category.

A peculiar tense category
H. Sweet, G.Curme, M. Bryant, J.Aiken,
O.Jespersen, N.F.Irtenyeva,
M.A.Ganshina & N.M.Vasilevskaya

A peculiar aspect category
M.Deutschbein,
E.A. Sonnenschein, A.S.West,
G.N.Vorontsova

The "tense-aspect" category
I.P. Ivanova – temporal + aspective functions – indefinite forms

A separate category
B.A. Ilyish,
B.S.Khaimovich & B.I.Rogovskaya,
J.Trager, H.Smith & W.Francis, L.S.Barhudarov,
M.Y. Blokh

THE CATEGORY OF MOOD
Mood as a grammatical category of the verb reflects the relation of the action denoted by the verb to reality from the speaker's point of view.

Problems
the coexistence of both synthetic and analytical forms of the verb with the same grammatical meaning of irreality;
the homonymous verb groups;
the number of moods

Number of Moods
2 moods – L.S.Barhudarov
3 moods – B.A.Ilyish, V.X.Zhigadlo, etc.
4 moods – H.Sweet, G.N.Vorontsova
6 moods – A.I.Smirnitsky, O.S.Akhmanova,etc.
16 moods – M.Deutschbein

THE CATEGORY OF VOICE
the verb denotes the relationship between the action expressed by the verb and the person or non-person denoted by the subject of the sentence.

The voice of the English verb is expressed by the opposition of the passive form of the verb to the active form of the verb.

Be + Participle II
Passive Voice
Homonymous group

Number of Voices
2 Voices - the active and the passive voice
3 Voices - the active, the passive, and the reflexive voice
5 Voices - the active, the passive, the reflexive, the reciprocal and the neuter (middle) voice

Joos's concept of voice
Primary passive
Secondary passive
Tertiary passive

THE ADJECTIVE.
denotes a quality or state of a substance. Typical features:
1) the lexico-grammatical meaning of 'attributes (of substances)’;
2) the morphological category of the degrees of comparison;
3) functions of the attribute and a predicative complement

The Category of the Degrees of Comparison
Positive
Comparative
Superlative

OpShACOM

Syntax.
Syntax is that part of grammar which is concerned with the relationships of words in sentences. N. Chomsky defines syntax as the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages. The basic units of syntax are phrases and sentences.

Phrase
a combination of two or more notional words or a form-word plus a notional word;
a combination of words which contains at least two notional words
a notional word and one or more auxiliary words (a preposition, an auxiliary verb).

Otto Jespersen
a combination of words which together form a sense unit ("puts off“);
elements of different ranks (primaries, secondaries and tertiaries "according to circumstances“);
two main types of combinations —"junction" and "nexus".

“a junction is like a picture, a nexus is like a drama or a process"

Junction
the joining of the two elements is so close that they may be considered one composite name
junction designates attributive relations a silly person: a fool

Nexus
"In a nexus something new is added to the conception contained in the primary".
nexus designates predicative relations.

Two subtypes:
independent - forms a whole sentence (the door is red)
dependent – “does not give a complete piece of information" and is "found in clauses ...and various other combinations” (I paint the door red)

Kruisinga
"a syntactic group is a combination of words that forms a distinct part of a sentence"

2 types of syntactic groups
a close group - one of the members is syntactically the leading element of the group (mild weather)
a loose group - each element is comparatively independent of the other member (men and women)

Leonard Bloomfield
a phrase is "a free form which consists of two or more lesser free forms” (poor John or John ran away or Yes, Sir.)

Two kinds of phrases:
endocentric - "character-substance construction" - the phrase belongs to the same form-class as one or more of its constituents;
exocentric - "actor-action construction" - the phrase does not share the form-class of any of its constituents.

Endocentric
word combinations in which at least one of the constituents has a function coinciding with the function of the phrase as a whole: poor John, fresh milk

Exocentric
phrase appears in a different syntactic position than any of its constituents
"John ran” is neither a nominative expression (like John) nor a finite verb expression (like ran)". “beside John,” with me,” in the house,” by running away”

Henry Sweet
rejects phrase altogether as a grammatical term.
A word-group is defined as a combination when words are joined together grammatically and logically without forming a full sentence: (man of honour, the roundness of the earth, the round earth, going away, his going away).

Harold Whitehall
classifies phrases ("word-groups" in his terminology) according to their function and their structure. He distinguishes two main types of word-groups: headed (endocentric) and non-headed (exocentric).

The tail-head constructions
two subtypes: (1) those with a noun head preceded by one, two or several modifiers:
fresh fruit, nice fruit, the nice fresh fruit, all the very nice fresh fruit,

(2) those with a verb head proceeded by one or more specialized modifiers (verbal auxiliaries) with or without any inserted adverbs.
trees can yield good fruit, trees yield good fruit

Non-headed word-group
1 - is always a prepositional phrase. For instance, a book of poems, this book of mine, a basket from Naples, the cloth on the table, she was aware of what he meant .
2 - a "subject-predicate word-group" is a predicative combination of elements.
I saw or the horses ran

The Sentence
a sentence is a group of words containing a subject and a predicate and expressing a complete thought. (Traditional definition)

The main requirements for a definition
it must state the relation of the sentence, a unit of language, to thought,
it must take into account the specific structure of the language in question,
it must leave room for as many possible varieties if sentence as can be reasonably expected to occur in the given language.

One of the most important features of the sentence that distinguishes it from any combination of words is predication, i.e. the relation of an utterance to reality.
-"the doctor's arrival" and "the doctor arrived" - the same lexical units, and their lexical content is the same. Both express something about the same person (the doctor) and the same action (arrival).

An important difference: the former does not show whether the action denoted by the verb is something or only desirable, necessary or possible, whether the action refers to the present, past or future; they’ re shown in the latter utterance - the arrival of the doctor is given as a fact that happened in the past. Of two utterances only the second is a sentence as the action, denoted by the predicate verb is related to reality. Predication is as a rule expressed by the finite verbal forms.

Another most important feature of the sentence which distinguishes it from a phrase is intonation. As pointed out by G.G. Egorov. The concepts of 'sentence' and 'intonation' are inseparable. Without 'intonation' a word or a group of words usually apprehended by us as a. 'sentence' is only a potential sentence"

Classification of Sentences
according to the purpose of the utterance, and
according to structure.

Ch.C. Fries
I. Communicative utterances.
1. A. Greetings. B. Calls. C. Questions.
2. requests or commands.
3. statements.
II. Noncommunicative utterances.
Surprise, sudden pain, prolonged pain, disgust, anger, laughter, sorrow, e.g. oh, goodness, damn, my God, etc.

Classification of Sentences according to the Purpose of the Utterance
E. Kruisinga: declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, optative, (May you be successful: God save the Queen!) imperative.
G.Curme: the exclamatory sentence (Oh! Look! Come in!), the declarative sentence, (A day has twenty-four hours), the interrogative sentence (Are you going? You are going?).

Interrogative Sentences
P.Roberts "An interrogative sentence is customarily defined as a sentence that asks a question. This is to say that a sentence that asks a question is a sentence that asks a question, which is true but not useful"
There are a number of interrogative sentences that do not express a question at all or are only weakly interrogative: rhetorical interrogative sentences,

D.L.Bolinger
“Q is fundamentally an attitude which might be called 'craving' - it is an utterance that craves a verbal or either semiotic (e.g. a nod) response"

Weakly interrogative sentences
Rhetorical s-es are used not to elicit information, but as a more striking substitute for a declarative sentence (Was ever such, non-sense written? for Never was such nonsense written.),
polite formulas with the form of an interrogative sentence (Won't you sit down?),
conversational formulas (How do you do?),
interrogative repetitions, which are often employed for emotional and rhetoric purpose, ("Are you ever sorry?-"Sorry?“), ("Why should we be sorry? We're getting everything we ever wanted."),
sentences with an appended interrogative construction (I guess I've intruded. - Yes, you have, haven't you? Forget I said it, will you? It's nice weather today, isn' it?).

Interrogative sentences in meaning are those which ask a question and expect an answer. Interrogative sentences in form are distinguished by only formal features of which the following should be considered: intonation, lexical and grammatical features.

Different types of interrogative sentences are characterized by different formal features.: Do you live here? (inversion + the analytic predicate verb), Where do you live? (interrogative word + inversion +the analytic predicate verb), Who lives here? (interrogative word), You live here? (rising intonation). The only common formal criterion for distinguishing all types, of interrogative sentences seems to be transformational, vis. the transformation of interrogation (T-Q), which transforms an affirmative sentence into an interrogative one.