An extensive summary of all chapters (H1 tm H8) of the book 'English Sentence Analysis' for the course linguistics (taalkunde). With this summary I passed the exam without a resit.
Samenvatting English Sentence Analysis, ISBN: 9789027225665 Sentence Structure
Summary English Sentence Analysis, ISBN: 9789027225665 Language Optimization
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Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RuG)
Communicatie- en Informatiewetenschappen
Taalkunde CIW & IK (LCX014P05)
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Chapter 1
Four main reasons for communicating:
- To inform someone
- To get information from someone
- To get someone to do something
- To express one’s attitude about something
All have a name, typical sentence pattern and syntactic characteristics:
- Declarative: John is leaving. (Subject-whole verb)
- Interrogative: Is John leaving? (Part of verb-subject-rest of verb)
- Imperative: Leave! (Verb by itself,)
- Exclamatory: How awful John is leaving! (How/What a followed by remainder of
sentence)
Sentences can have different functions at once. The most common function is informing.
Declarative sentences:
When different people describe the same situation, it is likely that they use different words
because they may find different aspects important or interesting. The words the speaker uses
shows which of the aspects of the scene he/she finds most appropriate, relevant or effective.
People can name the following aspects:
- One or more participants
- Attributes of the participants
- Information about the setting of the situation
Attributes:
A Quality: The little boy is happy.
A Characteristic: He turned three years old.
Identification: He must be Anna’s little brother
Class membership: He was a toddler
Second participant (another thing, person, situation):
The little boy is holding a balloon.
And, in some cases it is possible to name an attribute of the second participant.
The little boy considered the balloon unpoppable.
Three participants:
The mother (1) had give the boy (3) a balloon (2)
Process: describes the act, deed, state of being or becoming that the first participant is involved
in (is holding, is walking).
Setting: Very broadly. Can refer to time, reason, condition, cause etc. Anything that is not a
participant, attribute or process.
The little boy was very proud yesterday – shows when the event took place.
A group of words used to name a particular role has a technical function in the sentence.
,Typical sentence order
The subject comes before the predicator, objects and attributes. The only sentence constituent
that seems to occur before the subject is the adverbial.
To make sense of words, a listener must recognize a pattern.
1. Words that make up one constituent (a subject, a predicator) are put together in a certain
order (the language, not language the)
2. Constituents are arranged according to a recognizable pattern (most common: first the
subject then the predicate and then possibly the complement)
Predicate: is the remainder of the sentence, naming the process, other participants, attributes
and setting. The predicate consists of a predicator, which names the process, and its complement.
Complement: the objects or attributes, which name other participants or attributes of
participants that are necessary to complete the meaning of the predicator. Can be a direct object
or subject attribute. If there is a direct object, there may also be either an indirect or benefactive
object or an object attribute in the complement.
Subject Predicator Complement
The language we use / (not only) expresses / ideas
/ (but also) shapes / our thinking
- ‘Not only’ and ‘but also’ doesn’t have a function in this sentence.
- ‘Ideas’ and ‘our thinking’ are direct objects (DO)
Five basic, prototypical sentence patterns:
1. The running pattern (intransitive verbs): a subject and predicator, often followed by an
adverbial. You need a verb that expresses an action. John is running fast (S,P,A)
,2. The being pattern (copula verbs): a subject and predicator followed by a subject attribute.
you need a verb that does not have much meaning, but expresses the sense of (=). John is fast in
the game (S, P, SA, A)
Context
He appeared suddenly: appear expresses an action > running pattern
He appeared sad: appear has a sense similar to be > being pattern
3. The doing/seeing pattern (monotransitive verbs): a subject and predicator followed by a
direct object. you need a verb that expresses an action or a (mental) experience such as
perception involving two participants, one who does the acting or experiencing and one who is
acted upon or perceived. John kicked the ball when it was thrown by Peter (S, P, DO, A)
4. The giving/buying pattern (ditransitive verbs): a subject, predicator, indirect or
benefactive object, and direct object. At least three participants: a person who gives something
to some- one or does something for someone (subject), the thing that is given or done (direct
object), the receiver (the indirect or benefactive object). John gave Peter the ball (S, P, IO, DO)
Difference between an indirect object and a benefactive object:
An indirect object has the thing given in hand after the transfer, the benefactive object does not.
(In many books, the distinction between indirect and benefactive object is not made. Both can be
called indirect object.)
Trick: changing the sentence word order and see which preposition must be used. The
preposition to indicates an indirect object, and the preposition for, a benefactive one.
5. The m aking/considering pattern (com plex-transitive verbs): a subject and
predicator followed by a direct object and object attribute. When used with this pattern, a verb
like make has a sense of ‘doing something’ and thus causing the ‘direct object’ to belong to a new
category. John considered the ball out (S, P, DO, OA)
Complex-transitive verbs: Wipe, drive, call, crown, name, elect (like making) and assume, prove,
declare, certify, regard, deem (like considering).
, Same verb, different patterns
English word order
Is quite stiff. Almost always the subject comes first, then the predicator, etc. Finding out what the
subject is > make the sentence into a question. The subject will appear after the first verb.
We spread a thin layer of fruit on each plate. Did we spread …
The only constituent that may occur in many different places is an adverbial. Especially one-
word adverbials like not, always, and often may occur almost anywhere in the sentence.
Finding the adverbial > try to move it in the sentence.
He used plastic wrap to cover the plates. To cover the plates, he used plastic wrap.
Concluding
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