Download predication

Word-Classes and
Members of Sentences
Grammatical Word-Classes (Parts of Speech)
Notional parts of speech:
Functional parts of speech:
the Noun
the article
the Verb
the preposition
the Adjective
the conjunction
the Adverb
the modal words
the Pronoun
the interjection
the Numeral
the particle
Grammatical word-classes:
Notional parts of speech
 Notional parts of speech have a naming function and
express notions.
 They function as the following members of a sentence:
1. the Subject
2. the Predicate
3. the Object
4. the Attribute and
5. the Adverbial Modifier
Grammatical word-classes:
Functional parts of speech
 Functional words, or form-words, have no
naming function and express relations only.
 They have a linking and specifying function.
 They cannot make a sentence by themselves:
e.g., A student entered the classroom.
They are playing golf.
Grammatical word-classes:
Functional parts of speech
 The words that are used to connect words and
clauses are called “connectives”
(prepositions, conjunctions),
e.g., The bag is at the desk.
 The semi-notional words that are used to
specify words and their combinations are
called “specifiers” (articles, particles),
e.g., I saw a student in the hall. The student
was dancing there.
Main parts of a sentence
 The two-member sentence is a sentence with
a full predication, i.e. subject-predicate
relations:
e.g., He developed a plan.
 The subject and the predicate are called
headwords.
Main parts of a sentence
 Words attached to headwords are called
adjuncts.
 They are:
attributes
2. adverbial modifiers
3. predicatives, etc.
1.
Headwords:
The Subject (Who? What?)
 Syntactically,
the subject is an independent member in a
two-member predication.
e.g., These students are smart.
 Structurally,
the subject may be simple or complex.
The Simple Subject
The simple subject may be expressed by different parts of
speech:
1. The
noun in the Common case: The teacher disliked Mary to
talk like that;
2. The
pronoun (personal, demonstrative, defining, indefinite,
negative, etc.): I rely on you. That was interesting. All is well
that ends well;
3. The
substantivized adjective: The wounded were taken
to the hospital;
numeral (cardinal and ordinal): The first ran away;
The Infinitive: To live is to work;
The Gerund: Lying doesn’t go well with me.
By a group of words or a clause: The needle and thread is
4. The
5.
6.
7.
The Complex Subject
 The complex subject is usually expressed by
means of predicative constructions with the
verbals that imply the idea of secondary
predication:
e.g., For him to fail the test would be risky.
Her being French might encourage him to
learn French.
 The Verbals: the Infinitive and the Gerund
The Subject: semantic features
 Semantically, subjects fall into the following types:
1. the definite personal subject, expressed by notional
parts of speech:
e.g., The green yards are wonderful there.
It was a cozy study room.
2. the indefinite personal subject, expressed by the
indefinite pronoun one or the personal pronouns they,
you, we:
e.g., They say he is cool. You never know.
3. the impersonal subject, expressed by impersonal
pronoun it:
e.g., It is getting dark.
The Headwords:
The Predicate (What to do?)
 The predicate is the member of predication that
denotes an action, a state or a property of the
thing expressed by the subject.
 The predicate contains the mood and tense
features.
e.g., She is a student. They were tired. You should
go.
 Grammatically, the predicate is a dependent
element, as in most cases it agrees with the
subject in number and person.
e.g., She is a student. They are students. You are
The Predicate
 Structurally, the predicate is divided into a simple
predicate and a compound predicate.
 Morphologically, predicates fall into verbal
predicates and nominal predicates.
 Structural and morphological characteristic
features determine the following types of
predicates:
1. simple verbal predicate
2. compound verbal predicate and
3. compound nominal predicate
The simple verbal predicate
 The simple verbal predicate is expressed by a
verb in the following forms:
 tense,
 voice and
 mood
e.g., She stayed.
I will go.
The poem was written by Shakespeare.
They would rather go.
The Compound predicate
 The compound predicate consists of 2 parts:
e.g., She is 25.
She is a teacher.
She is beautiful.
She is getting nervous, etc.
The Compound predicate
The 2 forms are called a finite and a non-finite
form.
1. a finite form is expressed with a verb:
e.g., She is a student. They became students.
2. a non-finite form is expressed by various parts
of speech –
the noun, the pronoun, the adjective, the
Gerund, and the Infinitive:
e.g., She is a student.
They got tired.
She was supposed to go.
Types of the compound predicate
 The compound predicate may be of 2
kinds:
the compound verbal predicate and
the compound nominal predicate
The compound verbal modal predicate
 It depends on the meaning of the finite verb – modal or
aspect.
The compound verbal modal predicate consists of 2
parts:
1. a modal form of a finite verb
e.g., I have to work to make a living.
2. the Infinitive or the Gerund of a non-finite form of
the verb
e.g., You are welcomed to join the group.
 It shows whether the action (expressed by a non-finite
The compound verbal predicate
 The compound verbal predicate may be of 2
types:
1. The compound verbal modal predicate
e.g., I must visit her in the hospital.
2. The compound verbal aspect predicate
e.g., He began singing. She stopped crying.
 2 types of the compound verbal predicate depend
on the meaning of the finite verb –
 modal or
 aspect
The compound verbal aspect predicate
The compound verbal aspect predicate consists of
2 parts:
1. the finite form of the verb to begin, to continue,
to give up, to finish, etc.:
e.g., It stopped raining.
2. the non-finite form expressed by the Infinitive or
the Gerund
e.g., He used to play a saxophone last year.
I kept watching her.
 It indicates the beginning, repetition, duration or
end of the action expressed by the non-finite form
of the verb.
The compound nominal predicate
 The compound nominal predicate consists of 2
parts:
 a link verb and
 a predicative.
e.g., She is a student.
He became angry.
 It denotes a quality of a person or a thing
expressed by the subject.
The link verb
 Link verbs have partly lost their semantics and
perform grammatical functions mostly:
He is getting nervous.
 The semantics of the whole predicate is presented
by the second component called a predicative.
The predicative
 The predicative can be expressed by the following
word-classes:
1. A noun: She is a beautiful girl. The car is my
brother’s.
2. An adjective: She is kind and generous.
3. A pronoun: That was he. The book was mine.
What is he?
4. A numeral: She was 25. He was the first..
5. The Infinitive: We are to have a test tomorrow.
6. The Gerund: My hobby is reading.
7. Participle II: He was surprised to know that…
8. An adverb: It was enough to realize that…
The predicative
 The predicative may refer
either to the subject or to the object.
 Hence, there exist 2 types of the Predicative:
1. The subjective predicative and
2. The objective predicative
The subjective predicative
 The subjective predicative refers to the Subject in
a sentence.
 It may be expressed by the following wordclasses:
1. a noun in the Common case: She is still a kid.
2. a pronoun: It is he who is responsible for the
incident.
3. an adjective The dish is superb!
4. a numeral: He is 25.
5. the Gerund: He was seen running away.
6. the Infinitive: His first thought was to go away.
The objective predicative
 The objective predicative refers to the Object in a
sentence.
 It may be expressed by the following wordclasses:
1. a noun: He appointed her a secretary.
2. an adjective: They painted the wall white.
3. the Infinitive: He convinced me to join him
4. The Gerund: I found him reading “The Times”.
.
Mixed types of the compound predicate
 There exist some mixed types of predicates:
1. compound nominal modal predicate:
I longed to become a teacher. I didn’t mean to
be rude.
2. compound nominal aspect predicate:
He used to be a good student. I began to feel
angry.
3. compound modal aspect predicate:
I had to begin living again.
You ought to stop talking nonsense.
The double predicate
 The compound predicate has a subtype,
the so-called double predicate.
 The link verb there is expressed by a
notional verb: They married young.
The Object (do what?)
 They denote the object of an action.
 They are attached to the verb.
 The object may be expressed by the following word-classes:
1. a noun in the Common case:
I am fond of reading books.
2. a pronoun: I want to know all about it.
3. a substantivized adjective:
Stop teasing the poor.
4. the Gerund, etc.: She cannot stop loving you.
Prepositionless vs Prepositional
 Prepositionless objects are subdivided into
1. direct objects
2. indirect objects
3. cognate objects
The Direct Object
 The direct object is used after transitive verbs and
denotes an object that is directly affected by the
verb:
They all are fond of reading books.
What are you doing?
Some verbs may have two direct objects.
They are: to ask, to answer, to take, to forgive, to
teach, etc.:
 Answer me this question!
 She taught me English.

The Indirect Object
 The indirect object denotes a person to whose
benefit the action is performed.
 It is usually used in a combination with the
direct object and precedes it:
Give me this book, please!
 When the direct object precedes the indirect
object, the latter is used with the prepositions to
or for:
Give it to Mary.

The Cognate Object
 Cognate objects are frequently used with
intransitive verbs that are expressed by nouns of
the same root with the governing verb
(to smile a smile, to live a life, to laugh a laugh, etc):
They live a happy life.
The Prepositional Object
 The prepositional object is used with
intransitive verbs and is expressed by means
of various prepositions:
You cannot depend on him.
Thank you for your kindness.
The Complex Object
 The complex object consists of two components of






which the second stands in predicate relations to
the first one:
I saw her enter the building.
The first component of the complex object is
usually expressed by a noun or a personal
pronoun
The second component –
by the Infinitive: I saw her turn pale. We are
waiting for Mary to arrive.
a participial construction or a gerundial
construction: He watched them talking.
The Adverbial Modifier
(Do how? Do when? Do which way?)
 Express qualitative, quantitative or circumstantial
features
 Relations of time, place, reason, purpose, manner,
degree, etc. I saw him in the afternoon (When?)
 An adverbial modifier may be expressed by
different parts of speech, such as
1. an adverb: I’ve seen him lately.
2. a noun with a preposition:
A few minutes later the train ran into the station.
3. a pronoun: She is older than I am.
4. an adjective: He looks old.
Types of Adverbial Modifiers
1.place and direction: I couldn’t find him anywhere;
2.time: I’ll do it tonight;
3.manner and attendant circumstances:
She looked excited;
4.degree: He felt desperately lonely;
5.cause: I felt ashamed of being watched;
6.purpose: He opened the door for her to come in;
7.result: They were too busy to notice him.
Complex Adverbial Modifier
1. the Infinitive:
She rose to find him and talk to him seriously;
2. Participial constructions:
When questioned, she answered very briefly.
While waiting for her to come, we discussed the
problem.
3. Gerundial constructions:
She looked at me without speaking.
Extensions
 They are modifiers of modifiers.
 They are adverbial modifiers, which are adjuncts
of adjectives and adverbs:
You speak too loud.
She is pretty nice.
They are quite smart.
Attribute
(What kind of object?)
 It describes an object.
 The attribute may be expressed by
 a noun: She is a high school teacher.
 an adjective: She is a big girl already.
 an adverb: It’s an after effect.
 a numeral: Look at the second desk!
 a pronoun: Take care of your family.
 Participle I: I admired the snow glittering on the
branches of the trees.
Pre-position vs Post-position
 A beautiful girl… (pre-position)
 A voice inside was loud. (post-position)
 The room above was small. (post-position)
Constructions and Phrases
 The destroyed building…(Participle II)
 A dancing girl book Participle I)
 A dancing hall (Gerund)
 The idea of borrowing money (prepositional with
the Gerund construction)
 They’ve got work to do (Infinitive)
 A book for you to read… (for+to Infinitive
construction)