Теоретическая грамматика современного английского языка : учебное пособие
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Theoretical Grammar
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The difference between a phrase and a sentence is a fundamental one. A phrase is a means of naming some phenomena or process, just as a word is. Each component of a phrase can undergo changes according to its grammatical categories ( write letters — wrote a letter — writes letters , etc). The sentence, on the contrary, is a unit with every word having its definite form. Any formal change would produce a new sentence. Sentence is a unit of communication, and intonation is one of the most important features of a sentence, which distinguishes it from a phrase. Theory of phrase has a historical background of its own. Early English syntax of the 17 th century concerned itself with the study of word-groups, their structure and the relations between their elements. In the second half of the 18 th century the term “phrase” was introduced to denote a word-group in English. This term was accepted by the 19 th
century grammarians. At first it denoted any combination of two or more words, including that of a noun and a verb. Later the notion of clause was introduced to designate a syntactic unit containing a subject and a predicate. As a result, the term “phrase” was limited in its application to any word-combination except that making up a clause. English scientific grammar of the early 20 th century did not elaborate this part of syntax. Henry Sweet rejected the very term “phrase”. In the 62 preface to his grammar book he wrote: “I reject “phrase” altogether as a grammatical term, because of the endless confusions that arise between the various arbitrary meanings given to it by various grammarians and its popular meaning” (H. Sweet. A New English Grammar. Part I, p. viii). The author prefers to speak of word-groups, but defines this notion in the same way as the phrase used to be defined. According to H. Sweet, the relations between the elements of a word-group are based on grammatical and logical subordination. E. Kruisinga developed his own theory of close word-groups (including verb-groups, noun- groups, adjective-groups, adverb-groups, preposition-groups with the subordination of their elements) and loose words-groups (without subordination). In the history of phrase, O. Jespersen is known for his theory of three ranks and the differentiation of junction and nexus described in his book “The Philosophy of Grammar”. In any composite denomination he finds one word of supreme importance to which the others are joined as subordinated. The chief word is defined by another word which, in its turn, may be defined by a third word, etc. In the combination
the last word, which is the chief idea, is called primary;
which defines weather — secondary, and extremely — tertiary. According to O. Jespersen there is no need to distinguish more than three ranks of subordination in the attributive combinations of this kind. The difference between the notions of junction and nexus is the difference between attributive and predicative relations. In particular, O. Jespersen says that in a junction the joining of two elements is so close that they may be considered one composite name, e. g. a silly person — a fool. If we compare the red door (junction) on the one hand, and
(nexus) on the other, we find that the former kind is more rigid and stiff, and the latter more pliable, there is more life in it. Junction is like a picture, nexus is like a drama or a process. The basis of the structural theory of word-groups is the dichotomic division into endocentric (containing a head-word) and exocentric (non-headed) phrases, proposed by L. Bloomfield. Transformational grammar does not discuss word-groups in isolation, but the analysis of 63 sentences is based on the concept of phrase-structure (NP and VP), and some transformations result in word-groups, e. g. the transformation of nominalization. Structural linguists give the following classification of word-groups: Noun gr.
Modifier gr. Verbal gr. Prepositional gr. Subject-predicate gr. Verb gr.
Headed (subordinative) Non-headed (coordinative) Word-groups Tail-head Head-tail V. V. Burlakova has made some amendments in the classification above. In the left-hand part, she added adverb-groups to the tail-head set. In her opinion, verb-groups as well as prepositional groups belong to the head-tail set; noun-groups and adjective-groups can be found in both tail-head set and head-tail set. In the right-hand part, she has introduced dependent and independent subclasses, distinguishing between coordinative groups, accumulative groups, groups with primary predication, and groups with secondary predication.
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