Тема 9.

The phrase and the sentence as syntactic units

The main object of study in syntax is the communicative unit of the

language, the sentence. The phrase is the syntactic unit used as a notional part of a
sentence. As a level-forming unit, it is characterized by some common and some
differential features with the unit of the lower level, the word, and the unit of the
upper level, the sentence. Like the word, the phrase is a nominative unit, but it
provides a complex nomination of the referent, a polynomination consisting of
several (at least two) nominative components, presenting the referent as a
complicated phenomenon, cf.: a girl – a beautiful girl; a decision – his unexpected
decision; etc.
Moreover, the regular free phrase does not enter speech as a ready-made unit
like the word; it is freely formed in speech, like the sentence according to a certain
grammatical pattern. As for the fixed word-combinations, idioms, they are closer
to the word in the type of nomination: they are ready-made units fixed in
dictionaries and studied mainly by lexicology.
The basic difference between the phrase and the sentence is as follows: the
phrase cannot express full predication, even if it denotes a situation; this becomes
obvious in their mutual transformations, for example, in the so-called
phrasalization, or nominalization of the sentence, cf.: They considered the
problem. – their consideration of the problem; for them to consider the problem;
their considering of the problem. Thus, the phrase enters speech only as a
constituent of a sentence, as “a denoteme”, to be more exact, as “a polydenoteme”
as contrasted with the word, which enters a sentence as “a monodenoteme”. The
grammatical description of the phrase is seen as a separate part of syntax, the
syntax of the phrase; it is sometimes called “minor syntax”, in distinction to “major
syntax”, studying the sentence and its textual connections.
The definition of the phrase is rather a controversial issue. In Russian
linguistics, the narrow approach, which was put forward by V.V. Vinogradov,
traditionally prevails: only a combination of two notional words, one of which
dominates the other, is considered a word-combination. A much broader approach
was proposed by Leonard Bloomfield and it is shared by many modern linguists.
One of the leading specialists in this field, V. V. Burlakova, defines a word-
combination as any syntactically organized group of syntagmatically connected
words; this includes combinations of functional and notional words, and
predicative and coordinative combinations of words.
According to Ilyish and Burlakova, the phrase is a group unit formed by any
combination of 2 or more words in which neither of the elements can be
transformed or substituted in its position by a word of another class or subclass.
This definition is much wider, because it includes not only phrases
consisting of notional words, but also prepositional phrases, predicative phrases
with finite verbs.
Notional phrases are subdivided into different types, which reveal various
grammatical and semantic properties of the phrase constituents and the phrase in
general.
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 On the basis of constituent rank, the groupings of notional words are
subdivided into dominational (hypotactic) and equipotent (paratactic). The
constituents of equipotent phrases are of equal syntactic rank; none of them
modifies another, e.g.: poor but honest; mad, bad and dangerous; his, not Mary’s;
etc. As these examples show, the syntactic connections in equipotent phrases can
be realized with the help of a coordinative conjunction or without any connecting
element involved; the former are called “syndetic” connections, the latter
“asyndetic” connections. In the above examples, the phrase constituents form
logically consecutive connections, which are defined as “coordinative”.
Besides coordinative phrases, there are phrases in which the sequential
element, although connected with the foregoing element by a coordinative
conjunction, is unequal to it in the character of nomination, e.g.: came, but late;
agreed, or nearly so; etc. Such formally equipotent phrases of a non-consecutive
type are defined as “cumulative”.
The term “cumulation” is commonly used to denote connections between
separate sentences; so, cumulative connections between words can be defined as
“inner cumulation” in distinction to the “outer cumulation” of sentences.
In dominational phrases, one word modifies another. The principal
constituent, which dominates the other constituent syntactically, is called the
kernel, the key-word, or the head word; the subordinate (dominated) constituent,
which modifies the kernel, is called the adjunct, the adjunct-word, or the
expansion. For example, in the word-combination a beautiful girl the word ‘a girl’
is the kernel, and ‘beautiful’ is the adjunct. Dominational connection, like
equipotent connection, can be both consecutive and cumulative, cf.: definitely off
the point (consecutive domination) – off the point, definitely (cumulative
domination). Logically consecutive dominational connections are defined as
“subordinative”.
Dominational connection is achieved by different forms of the word
(categorial agreement, government), connective words (prepositions, i.e.
prepositional government), or word order (adjoining, enclosure). Agreement takes
place when the subordinate word assumes a form similar to the form of the kernel,
e.g.: this boy, these boys; the child plays, the children play; in English, words
agree only in number in some grammatical contexts. Government takes place when
a certain form of adjunct is required by its head-word, but it does not coincide with
the form of the head word, e.g.: to see him; to talk to him. Adjoining involves no
special formal mark of dependence between constituents; words are combined by
sheer contact, e.g.: to go home. Enclosure takes place in phrases in which the
subordinate word is placed between two parts of an analytical head-word form,
e.g.: to thoroughly think over, the then government, an interesting question, etc.
Domination achieved by the form of the word, through agreement or government,
is important for inflectional languages; in English, it is the remnant of the old
inflectional system as in the cases shown above. Phrases in which the connections
are expressed by prepositions only or word-order are predominant in English.
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 The two basic types of dominational connections are bilateral (reciprocal,
two-way) domination and monolateral (one-way) domination. The connections in
most of the examples above are monolateral dominational; the kernel dominates
the adjunct: this boy, to talk to him, a beautiful girl, etc. Bilateral domination is
realized in predicative connections of words, which may be either fully
predicative, or semi-predicative, e.g.: the pupil understands, the pupil’s
understanding, the pupil understanding, for the pupil to understand. In predicative
groupings of words the subject dominates the predicate, determining the person of
predication; formally, domination is manifested by the reflection of the person and
number properties of the subject in the form of the verb performing the function of
a predicate. The predicate dominates the subject, determining the event of
predication, some action, state, or quality; in the transformation of nominalization
the transform of the predicate occupies the position of the head-word, while the
subject becomes its adjunct, cf.: he decided  his decision.
Some linguists challenge the idea of “a predicative word-combination”,
arguing that predication can be expressed only by the sentence. Still, there is no
arguing with the fact, that the groupings of words which constitute the predicative
line in the sentence, predicative sintagmas, are to be distinguished as a specific
type, because bilateral domination is a specific type of syntagmatic connections of
words; to avoid disagreements, L. Hjelmslev suggests the term “interdependence”
to denote the connections between the constituents of bilateral dominational
phrases.
Thus, there are four basic types of syntagmatic connections of words
distinguished in their syntactic groupings: coordination (consecutive equipotent
connection), subordination (consecutive dominational connection), predication, or
interdependence (bilateral dominational connection) and cumulation (inner
cumulation).
Besides the classification of word groupings on the basis of the major
syntagmatic connections outlined above, there are further subdivisions and
generalizations, and other approaches possible in the description of the phrase. The
traditional classification of phrases is based on the part-of-speech characteristics of
their constituents (on the part of speech of the kernel in dominational phrases);
there are noun phrases (NP), e.g.: a beautiful girl; men, women and children;
verbal phrases (VP), e.g.: went home; came and went; adjective phrases (AP), e.g.:
quite unexpected; nice and quiet; adverbial phrases (DP), e.g.: quite unexpectedly.
On the base of kernel-adjunct relations, subordinative phrases can be divided into
those with objective connections (direct objective and indirect objective) and
qualifying connections (attributive and adverbial), e.g.: to see a child (direct
objective); put on the table (indirect objective); a beautiful girl (attributive); came
soon (adverbial). On the base of the position of the adjunct in relation to the kernel,
subordinative phrases are characterized as regressive or progressive: in regressive

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phrases, the adjunct precedes the kernel, e.g.: a beautiful girl; in progressive
phrases, the adjunct follows the kernel, e.g.: came home.

Тема 10. Sentence: general.

The sentence, as has been mentioned, is the central object of study in syntax.
It can be defined as the immediate integral unit of speech built up by words
according to a definite syntactic pattern and distinguished by a contextually
relevant communicative purpose.
The correlation of the word and the sentence shows some important
differences and similarities between these two main level-forming lingual units.
Both of them are nominative units, but the word just names objects and phenomena
of reality; it is a purely nominative component of the word-stock, while the
sentence is at the same time a nominative and predicative lingual unit: it names
dynamic situations, or situational events, and at the same time reflects the
connection between the nominal denotation of the event, on the one hand, and
objective reality, on the other hand, showing the time of the event, its being real or
unreal, desirable or undesirable, etc. A sentence can consist of only one word, as
any lingual unit of the upper level can consist of only one unit of the lower level,
e.g.: Why? Thanks. But a word making up a sentence is thereby turned into an
utterance-unit expressing various connections between the situation described and
actual reality. So, the definition of the sentence as a predicative lingual unit gives
prominence to the basic differential feature of the sentence as a separate lingual
unit: it performs the nominative signemic function, like the word or the phrase, and
at the same time it performs the reality-evaluating, or predicative function.
Another difference between the word and the sentence is as follows: the word
exists in the system of language as a ready-made unit, which is reproduced in
speech; the sentence is produced each time in speech, except for a limited number
of idiomatic utterances. The sentence belongs primarily to the sphere of speech;
earlier logical and psychological oriented grammar treated the sentence as a
portion of the flow of words of one speaker containing a complete thought.
Being a unit of speech, the sentence is distinguished by a relevant intonation:
each sentence possesses certain intonation contours, including pauses, pitch
movements and stresses, which separate one sentence from another in the flow of
speech and, together with various segmental means of expression, participate in
rendering essential communicative-predicative meanings (for example,
interrogation).
But, as was outlined at the beginning of the course, speech presents only one
aspect of language in the broad sense of the term, which dialectically combines the
system of language, language proper (“langue”), and the immediate realization of
it in the process of intercourse, speech proper (“parole”). The sentence as a unit of
communication also includes two sides inseparably connected with each other:
fixed in the system of the language are typical models, generalized sentence
patterns, which speakers follow when constructing their own utterances in actual
speech. The number of actual sentences, or utterances, is infinite; the number of

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“linguistic sentences” or sentence patterns in the system of language is definite,
and they are the object of study in grammar.
The definition of the category of predication is similar to the definition of the
category of modality, which also shows a connection between the named objects
and actual reality. However, modality is a broader category, revealed not only in
grammar, but in the lexical elements of language; for example, various modal
meanings are expressed by modal verbs (can, may, must, etc.), by word-particles of
specifying modal semantics (just, even, would-be, etc.), by semi-functional modal
words and phrases of subjective evaluation (perhaps, unfortunately, by all means,
etc.) and by other lexical units. Predication can be defined as syntactic modality,
expressed by the sentence.
The center of predication in the sentence is the finite form of the verb, the
predicate: it is through the finite verb’s categorial forms of tense, mood, and voice
that the main predicative meanings, actual evaluations of the event, are expressed.
L. Tesnière, who introduced the term “valency” in linguistics, described the verbal
predicate as the core around which the whole sentence structure is organized
according to the valencies of the predicate verb; he subdivided all verbal
complements and supplements into so-called “actants”, elements that identify the
participants in the process, and “circonstants”, or elements that identify the
circumstances of the process1. Besides the predicate, other elements of the sentence
also help express predication: for example, word order, various functional words
and, in oral speech, intonation. In addition to verbal time and mood evaluation, the
predicative meanings of the sentence include the purpose of communication
(declaration – interrogation – inducement), affirmation and negation and other
meanings.
As the description above shows, predication is the basic differential feature of
the sentence, but not the only one. There is a profound difference between the
nominative function of the word and the nominative function of the sentence. The
nominative content of a syntagmatically complete average sentence, called a
proposition, reflects a processual situation, an event that includes a certain process
(actional or statal) as its dynamic center, the agent of the process, the objects of the
process, and various conditions and circumstances of the realization of the process.
The situation, together with its various elements, is reflected through the
nominative parts (members) of the sentence, distinguished in the traditional
grammatical or syntactic division of the sentence, which can also be defined as its
nominative division. No separate word, no matter how many stems it consists of,
can express the situation-nominative semantics of a proposition.
To some extent, the nomination of situational events can be realized by
expanded substantive or nominal phrases. Between the sentence and the
substantive phrase of situational semantics direct transformations are possible; the
transformation of a sentence into a nominal phrase is known as “nominalization”,
e.g.: His father arrived unexpectedly  his father’s unexpected arrival, the
unexpected arriving of his father, etc. When a sentence is transformed into a
substantive phrase, or “nominalized”, it loses its processual-predicative character.
1
L. Tesnière metaphorically described the predicate as a “small drama”, in which the participants are “the actors”.
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This, first, supports once again the idea that the content of the sentence is a unity of
two mutually complementary aspects: of the nominative aspect and the predicative
aspect; and, second, this specifies the definition of predication: predication should
be interpreted not simply as referring the content of the sentence to reality, but as
referring the nominative content of the sentence to reality.

ACTUAL DIVISION OF THE SENTENCE

As has been mentioned, besides the nominative aspect of the semantics of the
sentence, which reflects the situation named with its various components, the
sentence expresses predicative semantics, which reflects various relations between
the nominative content of the sentence and reality. One of the first attempts to
analyze linguistically the contextually relevant communicative semantics of the
sentence was undertaken by the scholars of the Prague Lingistic Circle at the
beginning of the 20th century. The Czech linguist Vilém Mathesius was the first to
describe the informative value of different parts of the sentence in the actual
process of communication, making the informative perspective of an utterance and
showing which component of the denoted situation is informationally more
important from the point of view of the speaker. By analogy with the grammatical,
or nominative division of the sentence the idea of the so-called “actual division” of
the sentence was put forward. This linguistic theory is known as the functional
analysis of the sentence, the communicative analysis, the actual division analysis,
or the informative perspective analysis.
The main components of the actual division of a sentence are the theme and
the rheme. The theme (originally called “the basis” by V. Mathesius) is the
starting point of communication, a thing or a phenomenon about which something
is reported in the sentence; it usually contains some old, “already known”
information. The rheme (originally called “the nucleus” by V. Mathesius) is the
basic informative part of the sentence, its contextually relevant communicative
center, the “peak” of communication, or the information reported about the theme;
it usually contains some new information. There may be transitional parts of actual
division of various degrees of informative value, neither purely thematic, nor
rhematic; they can be treated as a secondary rheme, the “subrhematic” part of a
sentence; this part is called “a transition” (this idea was put forward by another
scholar of the Prague Linguistic Circle, J. Firbas). For example: Again Charlie is
late. – Again (transition) Charlie (theme) is late (rheme). The rheme is the
obligatory informative component of a sentence, there may be sentences which
include only the rheme; the theme and the transition are optional.
The theory of actual division of the sentence is connected with the logical
analysis of the proposition. The principal parts of the proposition are the logical
subject and the logical predicate; these two parts correlate with the theme and the
rheme of the sentence respectively. Logical analysis deals with the process of
thinking and the actual division reveals the corresponding lingual means of
rendering the informative content in the process of communication2.
2
The proponents of the psychological approach in linguistics (H. Paul, F. F. Fortunatov and others) also distinguish
“the psychological subject” and “the psychological predicate”.
6
 The logical subject and the logical predicate, like the theme and the rheme,
may or may not coincide, respectively, with the subject and the predicate of the
sentence. When the actual division of the sentence reflects the natural flow of
thinking directed from the starting point of communication to its semantic core,
from the logical subject to the logical predicate, the theme precedes the rheme and
this type of actual division is called “direct”, “unspecialized”, or “unmarked”. In
English, with its fixed word order, direct actual division means that the theme
coincides with the subject (or the subject group) in the syntactic structure of the
sentence, while the rheme coincides with the predicate (the predicate group) of the
sentence, as in Charlie is late. - Charlie (theme) is late (rheme). In some sentences,
the rheme may be expressed by the subject and it may precede the theme, which is
expressed by the predicate, e.g.: Who is late today? – Charlie (rheme) is late
(theme). This type of actual division is called “inverted”, “reverse”, “specialized”,
or “marked”. The last example shows that actual division of the sentence finds its
full expression only in a concrete context of speech (therefore it is sometimes
referred to as the “contextual” division of the sentence).
The close connection of the actual division of the sentence with the context,
which makes it possible to divide the informative parts of the communication into
those “already known” by the listener and those “not yet known”, does not mean
that the actual division is a purely semantic factor. There are special formal lingual
means of expressing the distinction between the meaningful center of the utterance,
the rheme, and the starting point of its content, the theme. They are as follows:
word order patterns, constructions with introducers, syntactic patterns of
contrastive complexes, constructions with articles and other determiners,
constructions with intensifying particles, and intonation contours.
The connection between word order and actual division has been described
above: direct actual division usually means that the theme coincides with the
subject in the syntactic structure of the sentence, while the rheme coincides with
the predicate. Inverted word order can indicate inverted actual division, though the
correlation is not obligatory. For example: (There was a box.) Inside the box was a
microphone; the adverbial modifier of place at the beginning of the sentence
expresses the theme, while the subject at the end of the utterance is the rheme; the
word order in this sentence is inverted, though its actual division is direct.
Reversed order of actual division, i.e. the positioning of the rheme at the beginning
of the sentence, is connected with emphatic speech, e.g.: Off you go! What a nice
little girl she is!
Constructions with the introducer ‘there’ identify the subject of the sentence
as the rheme, while the theme (usually it is an adverbial modifier of place) is
shifted to the end of the utterance, e.g.: There is a book on the table. The actual
division of such sentences is reverse without any emotive connotations expressed.
Cf.: The book is on the table; in this sentence both the word order and the actual
division are direct: the subject is the theme of the sentence.
Emphatic identification of the rheme expressed by various nominative parts of
the sentence (except for the predicate) is achieved by constructions with the

7
anticipatory ‘it’, e.g.: It is Charlie who is late; It was back in 1895 that Popov
invented radio.
The opposed nominative parts of the sentence are marked as rhematic in
sentences with contrastive complexes, e.g.: Charlie, not John, is absent today.
Articles and other determiners, in accord with their either identifying or
generalizing semantics, are used to identify the informative part “already known“,
the theme (definite determiners) or the “not yet known” information, the rheme
(indefinite determiners). E.g.: The man (theme) appeared unexpectedly. – A man
(rheme) appeared. But this correlation is not obligatory, because the theme is not
always the information already known; it may be something about which certain
information is given, so, the indefinite article may be used with the theme too, e.g.:
A voice called Mary.
Various intensifying particles, such as only, just, merely, namely, at least,
rather than, even, precisely, etc., identify the nominative part of the sentence
before which they are used as the rheme, e.g.: Only Charlie is late today. Similar is
the function of the intensifying auxiliary verb ‘do’, which turns the predicate into
the rheme of the sentence, while the rest of the predicate group is turned into the
transition or even the theme, e.g.: I did help your sister (cf.: I helped your sister).
The major lingual means of actual division of the sentence is intonation,
especially the stress which identifies the rheme; it is traditionally defined as
“logical accent” or “rhematic accent”. Intonation is universal and inseparable from
the other means of actual division described above, especially from word-order
patterns: in cases of direct actual division (which make up the majority of
sentences) the logical stress is focused on the last notional word in the sentence in
the predicate group, identifying it as the informative center of the sentence; in
cases of reverse actual division, the logical stress may indicate the rheme at the
beginning of the utterance, e.g.: Charlie (theme) is late (logical accent, rheme). -
Charlie (logical accent, rheme) is late (theme). In written speech the logical accent
is represented by all the other rheme-identifying lingual means, which indicate its
position directly or indirectly. They can be technically supported by special
graphical means of rheme-identification, such as italics, bold type, underlinings,
etc.
As has been mentioned, actual division of the sentence finds its full
expression only in a concrete context of speech, but this does not mean that the
context should be treated as the factor which makes the speaker arrange the
informative perspective of the sentence in a particular way. On the contrary, the
actual division is an active means of expressing functional meanings and it is not
so much context-governed as it is context-governing: it builds up concrete contexts
out of constructional sentence models chosen to reflect different situations and
events (see Unit 29). Contextual relevance of actual division is manifested, in
particular, in cases of contextual ellipsis; the elliptical sentence normally contains
the most important part of the information, the rheme, while the theme is omitted,
e.g.: Who is late today? – Charlie (Charlie is late today).

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 COMMUNICATIVE TYPES OF SENTENCES

The sentence is above all a communicative unit; therefore, the primary

classification of sentences is based on the communicative principle, traditionally
defined as “the purpose of communication”. According to the purpose of
communication, sentences are subdivided into declarative, interrogative and
imperative. Declarative sentences are traditionally defined as those expressing
statements, either affirmative or negative, e.g.: He (didn’t) shut the window.
Imperative sentences express inducements of various kinds (orders or requests);
they may also be either affirmative or negative, e.g.: (Don’t) Shut the window,
please. Interrogative sentences express questions, or requests for information, e.g.:
Did he shut the window?
There have been attempts to refute this traditional classification of
communicative sentence types and to introduce a new one. For example, Charles
Fries suggested classifying all the utterances not on the basis of their own
semantics, but on the kind of responses which they elicit, or according to their
external characteristics. He distinguished, first, utterances which are followed by
oral responses (greetings, calls, questions, etc.); second, utterances followed by
action responses (requests or commands); and third, utterances which elicit signals
of attention to further conversation (statements); additionally, he distinguished a
minor group of utterances, which are not directed to any interlocutor in particular
and presuppose no response (“non-communicative utterances”, e.g., interjectional
outcries).
Fries’s classification does not refute the traditional classification of
communicative sentence types, but rather confirms and specifies it: the purpose of
communication inherent in the addressing sentence is reflected in the listener’s
response. Therefore, the two approaches can be combined in the descriptions of
each type of sentence according to their inner and outer communicative features:
declarative sentences are defined as sentences which express statements and can be
syntagmatically connected with the listener’s signals of attention (his or her
appraisal, agreement, disagreement, etc.), e.g.: He didn’t shut the window. - Oh,
really?; imperative sentences express inducements, situationally connected with
the listener’s actions or verbal agreement/disagreement to perform these actions,
e.g.: Shut the window, please. – OK, I will; interrogative sentences express requests
for information and are syntagmatically connected with answers, e.g.: Did he shut
the window? – Yes, he did. The other types utterances distinguished by Fries are
minor intermediary communicative types of sentences: greetings make up the
periphery of the declarative sentence type as statements of good will at meeting
and parting; calls can be treated as the periphery of the inducement sentence type,
as requests for attention; “non-communicative” utterances are excluded from the
general category of the sentence as such, because they lack major constituent
features of sentences.
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 Further distinctions between the three cardinal types of sentences may be
revealed in the light of the actual division of the sentence: each communicative
sentence type is distinguished by its specific actual division features, especially,
the nature of the rheme.
The strictly declarative sentence immediately expresses a certain proposition,
and the actual division of the declarative sentence presents itself in the most
developed and complete form: the rheme of the declarative sentence provides the
immediate information that constitutes the informative center of the sentence in
opposition with its thematic part, e.g.: He (theme) shut the window (rheme).
The strictly imperative sentence does not express any statement of fact, i.e.
any proposition proper. It is only based on a proposition, without formulating it
directly, e.g.: Let him shut the window (He hasn’t shut the window). Thus, the
rheme of the imperative sentence expresses the informative nucleus not of an
explicit proposition, but of an inducement, an action wanted, required, necessary,
etc. (or, unwanted, unnecessary, etc.). Due to the communicative nature of the
inducement addressed to the listener, the theme of the imperative sentence may be
omitted or may take the form of an address, e.g.: Shut the window, please; Tom,
shut the window.
The rheme of the interrogative sentence is informationally open: it is an
informative gap, which is to be filled by the answer. This rhematic “zero” in
pronominal (“special”) questions is expressed by an interrogative pronoun, which
is substituted by the actual information wanted in the answer, e.g.: Who shut the
window? – Tom (did). The interrogative pronoun in the question and the rheme of
the answer make up the rhematic unity in the question-answer construction. The
openness of the rheme in non-pronominal questions consists in the alternative
semantic suggestions from which the listener has to choose the appropriate one.
The semantic choice is explicit in the structure of alternative questions, e.g.: Did
he or his friend shut the window? The rheme of non-pronominal questions
requiring either confirmation or negation (“general” question of yes-no response
type) is implicitly alternative, implying the choice between the existence or non-
existence of an indicated fact (true to life or not true to life?), e.g.: Did he shut the
window? – Yes, he did (No, he didn’t). The thematic part of the answer, being
expressed in the question, is easily omitted, fully or partially, as the examples
show.
Traditionally, the so-called exclamatory sentence is distinguished as one more
communicative type of sentence. Exclamatory sentences are marked by specific
intonation patterns (represented by an exclamation mark in written speech), word-
order and special constructions with functional-auxiliary words, rendering the high
emotional intensity of the utterance. But these regular grammatical features can not
be treated as sufficient grounds for placing the exclamatory sentences on the same
level as the three cardinal communicative types of sentences. In fact, each cardinal
communicative type, declarative, imperative or interrogative, may be represented
in its exclamatory, emotionally coloured variant, as opposed to a non-exclamatory,
unemotional variant, cf.: She is a nice little girl – What a nice little girl she is!;
Open the door. – For God’s sake, open the door!; Why are you late? – Why on
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earth are you late?! Exclamation is actually an accompanying feature of the three
cardinal communicative types of sentences, which discriminates emotionally
intense constructions from emotionally neutral ones at the lower level of analysis,
but it does not constitute a separate communicative type.
As for so-called “purely exclamatory sentences”, such as My God!; Goodness
gracious!; etc., as was mentioned earlier, they are not sentences in the proper sense
of the term: though they occupy isolated positions like separate utterances in
speech and resemble regular sentences in written representation, these interjection-
type outcries do not render any situational nomination or predication and they
possess no informative perspective. They can be defined as “non-sentential
utterances” which serve as symptoms of emotional reactions; they are also treated
as “pseudo-sentences”, “sentence-substitutes” or “non-communicative utterances”
(according to Ch. Fries).
Besides the three cardinal monofunctional communicative types of sentences,
there is a number of constructional sentence models of intermediary, mixed
communicative character. The transfer of certain communicative features from one
communicative type of sentence to another can be observed in correlations of all
three cardinal communicative types, i.e. in statement – question, statement –
inducement, and inducement – question correlations.
So-called indirect questions have the form of a declarative sentence, but
actually express a request for information, e.g.: I wonder who shut the window (cf.:
Who shut the window?). An answer is expected, as with a regular question, e.g.: I
wonder who shut the window. – Tom did; the response supports the mixed
communicative character of this sentence type. Sentences of this type, declarative
in form and intermediary between statements and questions in meaning, render the
connotation of insistence in asking for information. On the other hand, so-called
rhetorical questions are interrogative in their structural form, but express a
declarative functional meaning of high intensity, e.g.: How can you say a thing like
this? The sentence does not express a question; it is a reprimand. No answer is
expected; the responses elicited by rhetorical questions correspond to responses
elicited by declarative sentences (signals of attention, appraisals, expressions of
feelings, etc.), e.g.: How can you say a thing like this? – Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I
did not mean it. If a direct answer follows the rhetorical question, it emphasizes
implications opposite to the content of the question; often it is the speaker himself
or herself, who answers the rhetorical question, e.g.: Who is to be blamed for it?
No one, but myself.
Intermediary between statements and inducements are formally declarative
sentences with modal verbs and other lexical means of inducement, e.g.: You must
shut the window; I want you to shut the window (cf.: Shut the window, please!).
The responses to these sentences are similar to those elicited by imperative
sentences proper, i.e. actional responses or verbal agreement or disagreement to
perform the actions, e.g.: I want you to shut the window. - O.K., I will. On the other
hand, inducive constructions can be used to express a declarative meaning of high
expressiveness and intensity, in particular, in various proverbs and maxims, e.g.:

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Scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours (= One good turn deserves another). They
presuppose no actional response.
Inducive constructions can also be used to express a request for information,
inducing the listener to verbal response of information rendering; they represent
another type of indirect question, e.g.: Tell me who shut the window (сf.: Who shut
the window?) The reverse intermediary construction, that of inducement in the
form of a question, is very characteristic of English; it is employed to convey
various shades of politeness, suggestion, softening of a command, etc., e.g.: Will
you, please, shut the window? Could you shut the window, please? The response
elicited by such polite requests resembles the one to a proper inducement, e.g.:
Will you, please, shut the window? - O.K., I will.
Thus, the classification of the communicative sentence types, in addition to
three cardinal communicative types, includes six intermediary subtypes of
sentences of mixed communicative features; first, mixed sentence patterns of
declaration (interrogative-declarative, imperative-declarative), second, mixed
sentence patterns of interrogation (declarative-interrogative, imperative-
interrogative), and, third, mixed sentence patterns of inducement (declarative-
imperative, interrogative-imperative). Most of the intermediary communicative
types of sentences perform distinct stylistic functions, and can be treated as cases
of transposition of the communicative types of sentences presented in oppositions,
paradigmatically.
The communicative description of utterances was undertaken at the end of the
1960s by J. R. Searle within the framework of the so-called “theory of speech
acts”, on the basis of philosophical ideas formulated by J. L. Austin. Utterances are
interpreted as actions or acts by which the speaker does something (the title of the
book by J. L. Austin was How to Do Things with Words). On the basis of various
communicative intentions of the speaker, J. R. Searle produced a detailed
classification of so-called pragmatic (i.e. pertaining to the participants and the
circumstances of the particular speech act) utterance types. The two basic utterance
types are defined as performatives and constatives (representatives): performatives
are treated as utterances by which the speaker explicitly performs a certain act,
e.g.: I surrender; I pronounce you husband and wife; and constatives
(representatives) as utterances by which the speaker states something, e.g.: I am a
teacher; constatives are further subdivided into minor types, such as promissives
(commissives), e.g.: I will help you; expressives, e.g.: How very sad!; menacives,
e.g.: I’ll kill you!, directives, e.g.: Get out!; requestives, e.g.: Bring the chalk,
please; etc. From the purely linguistic point of view, various speech acts correlate
structurally and functionally with the three cardinal communicative types of
sentences. The mixed communicative types of sentences can be interpreted in the
theory of speech acts as indirect speech acts, e.g.: ‘There is no chalk left’ may be
interpreted as a representative or as a directive: There is no chalk left (= bring
some more); ‘I’ll be watching you!’ under different communicative circumstances
may be either a constative, a promissive or even a menacive.
Later the theory of speech acts developed into a separate branch of linguistics
known as “pragmatic linguistics” (“pragmalinguistics”, or “pragmatics”); this
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approach is used in syntactic studies as complementary to the classification of the
grammatically distinguished communicative types of sentences.

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