75
anticipatory subject which is worth considering first of all. It refers to
the sentences of the type:
It is necessary to do this work.
The most
convincing interpretation of this sentence structure, proposed by
R. Quirk, is as follows. The subject is placed at the end of the sentence,
and the subject position is filled by the anticipatory pronoun
It
. The
sentence thus contains two subjects, which are identified as the
postponed subject (the element which is notionally the subject of the
sentence) and the anticipatory subject (
It
).
The predicate is one of the two main parts of the sentence. It denotes
the action or property of the thing expressed by the subject. Structurally
predicates may be simple or compound, morphologically — verbal or
nominal. The resulting types are: a simple verbal predicate, a compound
verbal predicate, a simple nominal predicate, a compound nominal
predicate.
The compound nominal predicate always consists of a link-verb and
a predicative (complement) of any type. The link-verb
be
is regarded
as the most abstract (a pure link verb). The other link-verbs have each
some lexical meaning, either factual (
become
,
get
,
grow
,
turn
,
remain
,
keep
,
etc), or perceptional (
seem
,
appear
,
look
,
feel
,
taste
,
etc). It must
be kept in mind that some notional verbs (especially intransitive verbs
of position and motion) can perform the function of a link-verb without
losing their lexical nominative value, e. g.:
The moon rose red
;
He was
found guilty
. Since such sentences have both a simple verbal predicate
and a compound nominal predicate in their structure, they form a special
or mixed type of sentences with a double predicate.
The simple nominal predicate is rare in English but still a living type.
In fact, it is a compound nominal predicate with a link-verb omitted,
e. g.:
Достарыңызбен бөлісу: