P A R T S

O F A S E N T E N C E

It is common in grammatical theory to distinguish

between main and secondary parts of a sentence. Besides

these two types there are elements which are said to stand

outside the sentence structure.

There are two generally recognized main parts of the

sentence - the subject and the predicate. The reason for

calling the subject and the predicate the main parts of the

sentence is that they constitute the backbone of the

sentence: without them the sentence would not exist at all,

whereas all other (secondary) parts serve to define or

modify either the subject or the predicate, or each other.

THE SUBJECT

The subject is one of the two main parts of the sentence.

(1) It denotes the thing which action or characteristic is

expressed by the predicate. (2) It is not dependent on any other

part of the sentence. (3) Morphologically it may be expressed

by different parts of speech, the most frequent ones being: a

noun in the common case, a personal pronoun in the nominative

case, a demonstrative pronoun occasionally, a substantivized

adjective, a numeral, an infinitive, and a gerund, even by a

phrase.

Types of the Subject

From the point of view of its grammatical value the

subject may be notional and formal.

The notional subject can be

personal (denotes persons: The teacher paused for him to

continue. J.F.Kennedy was elected president in 1960.) or

non-personal (denotes non-persons, including animals,

whose name may be substituted by it or they. Look at the

cat. It is very small. To deny this was impossible.)

The formal subject can be of 3 types.

The first type is with impersonal it, which is used in sentences

describing various states of nature, time, distance, measurements,

characteristics of the environment: It is cold today.

The introductory formal subject is found in 2 patterns of sentences:

o those with introductory (anticipatory) it, which introduces the

notional subject expressed by an infinitive, a gerund, an

infinitive/gerundial phrase, or a clause: It’s impossible to deny

this. It gave him a pain in the head to walk. It was too late to

start;

o and with introductory there. There was a needle and thread in

her fingers. Once upon a time there lived a king. There is no

talking about it.

THE PREDICATE

The predicate is one of the two main parts of the

sentence.

(1) It denotes the action or property of the thing

expressed by the subject. The predicate is the member of a

predication which asserts something about the subject, it

characterizes the subject as to its action, state or quality.

(2) It is not dependent on any other part of the

sentence.

(3) Ways of expressing the predi cate are varied and

their structure will better be considered under the heading

of types of predicate. Among them there is: a finite verb

form, and a variety of phrases of the following patterns:

"finite verb + infini tive", "link verb + noun", "link verb +

adjective", "link verb + preposition + noun", etc.

Types of the Predicate

Predicates may be classified in two ways, one of

which is based on their structure (simple and compound),

and the other on their morphological characteristics

(verbal and nominal).

If the structural classification is taken as the basic

one the following types are obtained:

A Simple predicate B Compound predicate

(1) Verbal (1) Verbal

(2) Nominal (2) Nominal

If the morphological classification is taken as the

basic one the result would be the following:

A Verbal predicate B Nominal predicate

(1) Simple (1) Simple

(2) Compound (2) Compound

The Simple Nominal Predicate

The Simple Nominal Predicate, that is, a predicate

consisting merely of a noun or an adjective, without a link

verb, is rare in English, but it is nevertheless a living type

and must be recognized as such. One of the spheres of its

use is found in sentences where the immediate

neighbourhood of the subject noun and the predicate noun

or adjective is used to suggest the impossibility or

absurdity of the idea.

Sentences with this kind of simple nominal

predicate are always exclamatory, that is, they are

pronounced with the exclama tory intonation, and have an

exclamation mark in writing. My ideas obsolete!!!!!!! (with

7 exclamation marks) (B.Shaw) expresses the speaker's

indignation at hearing his ideas characterized as obsolete by

a younger man. It would not do, according to Prof. Ilyish, to

call such sentences elliptical, since the link verb cannot be

added without completely changing the meaning of the

sentence.

There are also some rare types, such as in the text

of weather forecast, and the like, for instance:

Wind southerly, later veering westward, sea slight,

etc.

Such sentences as these read like passages from a

questionnaire, the adjective answering a question referring

to the thing denoted by the noun (wind, sea, etc.).

The Simple Verbal Predicate

Lead sinks.

I haven’t finished my work yet.

The entrance door was closed at 12 sharp.

I will get in touch with you later this week.

The Compound Verbal Predicate

A rather considerable number of verbs can be

followed by an infinitive, some of them with, others

without the particle to. Among such verbs are shall, will,

should, would, can, may, must (without to); ought, wish,

want, desire, hate, fear, begin, start, continue, omit, forget,

remember, etc. (with to).

The relation between these phrases and parts of the

sentence is of course not the same in all cases. The phrases

shall, should, will, would + infinitive, which consti tute tense

or mood forms of the verb, do not belong here. Thus, the

phrase shall write is a form of the verb write and,

consequently, it is a simple verbal predicate. The phrases

with the verbs can, may, must, ought to constitute a

compound verbal predicate, as well as the phrases with the

verbs wish, want, desire, hate, fear, begin, start, continue.

The Compound Nominal Predicate

The compound nominal predicate always consists of a

link verb (also called copula) and a predicative, which

may be expressed by various parts of speech, usually a

noun, an adjective, also a stative, or an adverb (The

lesson is over). Of ten enough the predicative is

represented by a phrase (“preposition + noun").

The idea of "link" suggests that its function is to connect

the predicative with the subject. The true function of a link verb

is not a connecting function. It expresses the tense and the mood

in the predicate. The link verb be, which expresses the

grammatical categories, is rightly considered to be the most

abstract of all link verbs, that is, the one most devoid of any

meaning of its own. Other link verbs have some lexical

meaning, for instance become, get, continue, grow, turn:

Then he grew thirsty and went indoors.

But presently the sea turned rough.

S E C O N D A R Y P A R T S

The three traditional secondary parts of a

sentence are object, attribute, and adverbial modifier.

The object is usually defined as a secondary part

of the sentence, referring to a part of the sentence

expressed by a verb, a noun, a pronoun, an adjective,

a numeral, or an adverb, and denoting a thing to

which the action passes on, or denoting an action as

object of another action.

There are several types of objects:

non-prepositional and prepositional;

direct (objects expressing the thing which is sent, shown, given;

denotes the thing affected by the action denoted by the predicate

verb) and indirect (objects expressing persons to whom the thing is

sent; the person toward whom the thing is moved):

We sent them a present.

You showed my friend your pictures.

When the two objects occur together in a sentence, they are

distinguished by the relative places in the sentence, that is, by word-

order: the indirect object, if it is non-prepositional, stands first, and the

direct object comes after it.

The attribute is a secondary part of the sentence

modifying a part of the sentence ex pressed by a noun, a

pronoun, a cardinal numeral and any substantivized

word, and characterizing the thing as to its quality or

property.

The adverbial modifier is a secondary part of

the sentence modifying a part of the sentence expressed

by a verb, a verbal noun, an adjec tive, or an adverb, and

serving to characterize an action or a property as to its

quality or intensity, or to indicate the way an action is

done, the time, place, cause, purpose or condition, with

which the action or the manifestation of the quality is

connected.

There are several ways of classifying adverbial

modifiers:

(1) according to their meaning: adverbial modifiers of

place, time, condition, manner of an action, degree of a

property, purpose, etc.

(2) according to their morphological peculiarities,

(3) according to the type of their head word.

To be continued.