The main characteristics of the sentence

An important structural feature of the sentence is its entirety, that is, no word of the given
sentence can be the head or a dependent element relative to words that stand outside this
sentence.

So, the sentence can be defined as an immediate integral unit used in speech communication,
built up of words according to a definite syntactic pattern and characterized by predication. It
possesses the following properties:

 The sentence as a linguistic expression of extralinguistic reality must be actualized.

Actualization of the sentence content makes predicativity an inseparable property of every
sentence.

 The sentence, just like any other meaningful language unit, has a form. Every sentence has
an intonation pattern.

 The sentence occupies the highest hierarchical position relative to other structural language
units since the final purpose of all structural language units is to build sentences. Unlike the
sentence, the text does not have accurate and unambiguous structural characteristics. There
are no universal structural schemes of the text. None of semantico-structural means used to
join sentences is specific to the text. Therefore, the text cannot be considered a structural
language unit.

A sentence has two basic meaningful functions: naming and communicative. Sentences name
situations and events of objective reality and convey information, expressing complete thoughts
or feelings. The sentence is a structural, semantic and communicative unity. Accordingly the
three main aspects of the sentence are syntactic, semantic and logico-communicative.

The division into two parts, the theme and the rheme, is called the actual sentence division, or
the functional sentence perspective.

There is one more aspect of the sentence as a unit of speech – the use of sentences in social
interaction, their function in particular contexts of use. For example, the statement I have no
cigarettes can be analysed from the point of view of the intentions of the speaker, the effect of
the utterance in the interlocutor [ɪntə'lɔkjətə], the appropriateness of the utterance in a given
context. This aspect is called pragmatic.

Different aspects of the sentence are reflected in numerous definitions, which may be logical,
psychological, structural, etc.