Category: Life

Syntactic functions of the pronoun

Personal pronouns

The nominative case form is generally used as a subject of the sentence, or predicative in the compound nominal predicate in a sentence.

The objective case form is used mainly as an object (with or without a preposition), occasionally as an attribute in prepositional phrase.

Possessive pronouns

Both conjoint and absolute forms may function with reference to persons and non-persons; pointing back (with anaphorical force) and forward (with anticipatory force). A peculiarity of the English language is that possessive pronouns , not the article, are used with reference to parts of the body, personal belongings, relatives, etc.

Mine is newer than yours.

Reflexive pronouns

The most common functions of the reflexive pronouns are those of an apposition and an object (direct, indirect, prepositional). Other functions are possible but less common.

You and Carlos have deceived yourselves.

Reciprocal pronouns

Reciprocal pronouns in common case function as objects. The possessive case forms are used as attributes.

Demonstrative pronouns

Both of demonstrative pronouns this and that are commonly used anaphorically, pointing to things, persons, or situations denoted in the preceding context.

Sometimes, however, these pronouns may be used with anticipatory force, pointing to something new, or something still to come.

That is incredible! (referring to something you have just seen)

These [pancakes sitting here now on my plate] are delicious.

Indefinite pronouns

The pronouns some and any indicate quantities and qualities, depending on the class and grammatical form of the noun with which they are used. They may be attributes in a sentence, or may substitute the noun.

The pronoun any is the only one to be used in negative sentences. It is also more common for interrogative sentences apart from situations when the speaker suggests that a certain state of affairs exist and the sentence is assertive. Any may also be found in affirmative sentences if used with the meaning of no matter what, no matter who.

The pronouns beginning with any are commonly used in the sentences with the same meaning as any

The pronoun one which is indefinite-personal is used as subject and attribute.

Negative pronouns

These pronouns add negative context to the nouns they modify. They may refer to persons as well as to non-persons.

Detaching pronouns

The pronoun other may function as an attribute and remains the function in genitive case. The pronoun another also has a dual reference, but it correlates only with countable nouns in the single.

Universal pronouns

These pronoun may have collective (all), dual (both) and individual (every) reference. Their syntactic function

Interrogative pronouns

These pronouns are used to form special questions. Who, whose, whoever have personal reference; what, whatever have non-personal reference. Which may have both personal and non-personal reference.

Which questions give you the most trouble?

Conjunctive pronouns

Conjunctive pronouns always combine two functions – notional and structural. They are notional words because they function as parts of the sentence within a clause, and they are structural words because they serve as connectors or markers of the subordinate clause. The compounds whoever, whatever, and whichever introduce subject and adverbial clauses and have a concessive meaning.

Relative pronouns

Relative pronouns, like conjunctive ones, have two functions – notional and structural. They are parts of the sentence and connectors between the main clause and the subordinate attributive clause they are used in.

We know who is guilty of this crime

 

Syntactic functions of numerals

Numerals combine mostly with nouns and function as their attributes, usually as premodifying attributes.

Nouns premodified by ordinals are used with definite article.

The third cat

Postmodifying numerals combine with a limited number of nouns. Postmodifying cardinals are combinable with some nouns denoting items of certain sets of things: pages, paragraphs, chapters etc.

Room twenty-two

Postmodifying ordinals occur in combination with certain proper names, mostly those denoting members of well-known dynasties

King Henry VIII – King Henry the Eighth

Numerals are combinable with such words as:

• prepositional phrases
• pronouns
• adjectives
• particles

This way the words mentioned above are used as the head-words.

When speaking about other functions of numerals in a sentence apart from attribute already mentioned above, it is worth pointing out the functions of subject, object, predicative and adverbial modifier of time performed both by cardinals and ordinals. But when performing these functions, the numeral never acts alone being the substitute of the corresponding noun. Then noun is always mentioned in the previous context. The only case when the cardinal may act independently is when they function in their purely abstract meaning.

Numerals may be substantivized. Thus they take formal nominal features such as the category of number, an article, ability to combine with adjectives and some other modifier of nouns. The meaning of substantivized numerals may sometimes differ from normal ones. Thus hundred, thousand and million acquire the meaning of “a great quantity”.

Cardinals are substantivized when they name:

• school marks
• sets of persons and things
• playing cards
• boats for a certain number of rowers
• decades

Some cardinals may be name differently depending on the context. Thus zero is called naught and nil.

 

Conclusion

The most typical syntactic function of the pronoun is that of the object. Depending on ability to denote persons and non-persons, the objects may be direct or indirect. The most typical function of the numeral is that of an attribute. It may also take other functions, but this fact is closely connected with the noun which meaning the numeral may acquire under certain circumstances. Other pronouns are divided according to their functional characteristics.

All numerals may be divided into to classes, cardinals and ordinals. Both cardinals and ordinals may be simple, derived and compound. The use of cardinal and ordinal numbers is restricted by their syntactic meaning and combinability. Cardinal numbers are more flexible in usage, is more universal. They may change their meaning when substantivized. Ordinal numbers are more stable in their use and remain their primary meaning if substantivized.

 

Having done our research we found out that both parts of speech faced simplification. Both of them had complicated forms and functions. Talking about the morphological composition, it is worth mentioning that both pronouns and numerals may be simple, derived and compound.

Pronouns are divided functionally and, in some way, structurally into several subclasses. They are: personal pronouns, reflexive pronouns, possessive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, reciprocal pronouns, indefinite pronouns, detaching pronouns, universal pronouns, conjunctive pronouns, negative pronouns, relative pronouns, interrogative pronouns.

Numerals in their way are divided into cardinal and ordinal. Cardinal numbers have a wider range of functions comparing to ordinal which functions are more restricted.

Both cardinal and ordinal numbers may be substantivized. This way, cardinal numbers mostly change their primary meaning becoming more generalized. Contrast to it, ordinal numbers slightly and rarely change their meaning when being substantivized.

 

Annex 1 Extra meanings of cardinal numbers

0

zero: formal scientific usage

naught / nought: mostly British usage

aught: Mostly archaic but still occasionally used when a digit in mid-number is 0 (as in “thirty-aught-six”, the .30-06 Springfield riflecartridge and by association guns that fire it)

oh: used when spelling numbers (like telephone, bank account, bus line)

nil: in general sport scores, British usage (“The score is two-nil.”)

nothing: in general sport scores, American usage (“The score is two to nothing.”)

null: used technically to refer to an object or idea related to nothingness. The 0th aleph number ( ) is pronounced “aleph-null”.

love: in tennis, badminton, squash and similar sports (origin disputed, often said to come from French l’œuf, “egg”; but the Oxford English Dictionary mentions the phrase for love, meaning nothing is at risk)

zilch, nada (from Spanish), zip: used informally when stressing nothingness; this is true especially in combination with one another (“You know nothing—zero, zip, nada, zilch!”)

nix: also used as a verb

1:

ace: in certain sports and games, as in tennis or golf, indicating success with one stroke, and the face of a die or playing card with one pip

solo

unit

2:

couple

brace, from Old French “arms” (the plural of arm), as in “what can be held in two arms”.

pair

deuce: the face of a die or playing card with two pips

duo

3:

trey: the face of a die or playing card with three pips

trio

4:

cater: (rare) the face of a die or playing card with four pips

quartet

5:

cinque: (rare) the face of a die or playing card with five pips

quintet

6:

half a dozen

sice: (rare) the face of a die or playing card with six pips

sextet

7:

septet

8:

octet

9:

nonet

10:

decet

12: a dozen (first power of the duodecimal base), used mostly in commerce

13: a baker’s dozen

20: a score (first power of the vigesimal base), nowadays archaic; famously used in the opening of the Gettysburg Address: “Four score and seven years ago…” The Number of the Beast in the King James Bible is rendered “Six hundred threescore and six”.

50: half a century, literally half of a hundred, usually used in cricket scores.

100: a century, also used in cricket scores.

120: a great hundred (twelve tens; as opposed to the small hundred, i.e. 100 or ten tens), also called small gross (ten dozens), both archaic; also sometimes referred to as duodecimal hundred

144: a gross (a dozen dozens, second power of the duodecimal base), used mostly in commerce

1000: a grand, colloquially used especially when referring to money, also in fractions and multiples, e.g. half a grand, two grand, etc.

1728: a great gross (a dozen gross, third power of the duodecimal base), used mostly in commerce

10,000: a myriad (a hundred hundred), commonly used in the sense of an indefinite very high number

100,000: a lakh (a hundred thousand), loanword used mainly in Indian English

10,000,000: a crore (a hundred lakh), loanword used mainly in Indian English

10100: googol (1 followed by 100 zeros), used in mathematics; not to be confused with the name of the company Google (which was originally a misspelling of googol)

10googol googolplex (1 followed by a googol of zeros)

10googolplex googolplexplex (1 followed by a googolplex of zeros)

Combinations of numbers in most sports scores are read as in the following examples:

1–0 British English: one nil; American English: one-nothing, one-zip, or one-zero

0–0 British English: nil-nil, or nil all; American English: zero-zero or nothing-nothing, (occasionally scoreless or no score)

2–2 two-two or two all; American English also twos, two to two, even at two, or two up.)

 

Annex 2 Different ways of writing dates

Year

Most common pronunciation method – Alternative methods

1 BC – (The year) One Before Christ (BC)

1 before the Common era (BCE)

1 – (The year) One – Anno Domini (AD) 1

1 of the Common era (CE)

In the year of Our Lord 1

235 – Two thirty-five – Two-three-five

Two hundred (and) thirty-five

911 – Nine eleven – Nine-one-one

Nine hundred (and) eleven

999 – Nine ninety-nine – Nine-nine-nine

Nine hundred (and) ninety-nine

Triple nine

1000 – One thousand – Ten hundred

1K

Ten aught

Ten oh

1004 – One thousand (and) four – Ten oh-four

1010 – Ten ten – One thousand (and) ten

1050 – Ten fifty – One thousand (and) fifty

1225 – Twelve twenty-five – One-two-two-five

One thousand, two hundred (and) twenty-five

Twelve-two-five

1900 – Nineteen hundred – One thousand, nine hundred

Nineteen aught

1901 – Nineteen oh-one – Nineteen hundred (and) one

One thousand, nine hundred (and) one

Nineteen aught one

1919 – Nineteen nineteen – Nineteen hundred (and) nineteen

One thousand, nine hundred (and) nineteen

1999 – Nineteen ninety-nine – Nineteen hundred (and) ninety-nine

One thousand, nine hundred (and) ninety-nine

2000 – Two thousand – Twenty hundred

Two triple-oh

2001 – Two thousand (and) one – Twenty oh-one

Twenty hundred (and) one

Two double-oh-one

Two oh-oh-one

2009 – Two thousand (and) nine – Twenty oh-nine

Twenty hundred (and) nine

Two double-oh-nine

Two oh-oh-nine

2010 – Two thousand (and) ten

Twenty ten – Twenty hundred (and) ten

two-oh-one-oh

Classification of pronouns

All pronouns are divided into:

• Simple

I, you, he, we, etc.; this, that, some, who, all, one, etc.

• Compound

myself, themselves, somebody, everybody, anything, nothing, etc.

• Composite

each other, one another

Patterns of morphological change in pronouns vary not only depending on subclass, but also within a certain subclass. That may be reflected in presence or absence of the categories of number (I – we, this – these), case (somebody – somebody’s; he – him), person and gender (specific for personal pronouns). The pronouns also have special forms to distinguish between animate and inanimate objects. This category can be found in personal, possessive, conjunctive, relative, interrogative pronouns.

Semantically all pronouns fall into the following subclasses:

(classification by Kobrina E.)

• Personal pronouns
• Reflexive pronouns
• Possessive pronouns
• Demonstrative pronouns
• Reciprocal pronouns
• Indefinite pronouns
• Detaching pronouns
• Universal pronouns
• Interrogative pronouns
• Conjunctive pronouns
• Relative pronouns
• Negative pronouns

Some other scholars do not separate reflexive and possessive pronouns from the group of personal pronouns. The pronoun it is sometimes analyzed separately from others due to its triple-nature. Depending on situation, it may act as a personal, demonstrative or impersonal pronoun.

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns are noun-pronouns, indicating persons (I, you, he, we, they) or non-persons (it, they) from the point of view of their relation to the speaker. Thus I (me) indicates the speaker himself, we (us) indicates the speaker with some other person or persons, you indicates the person or persons addressed, while he, she, they (him, her, them) indicate persons (or things) which are neither the speaker nor the persons addressed to by the speaker.

Personal pronouns have the category of person, number, case (nominative and objective), and gender, the latter is to be found in the 3rd person only: masculine and feminine is he – him, she – her, neuter case-forms it-it coincide.

Here’s the table showing personal pronouns of basic Modern English

Singular – Plural

Subject – – Object

Reflexive – Subject – Object – Reflexive

First – I

me – myself – we

us – ourselves

Second – you

you – yourself – you

you – yourselves

Third – Masculine – he

him – himself – they

them – themselves

– Feminine – she

her – herself

– Neuter – it

it – itself

Possessive pronouns

Possessive pronouns indicate possession by person or non-person. They comprise two sets of forms: the conjoint forms – my, your, his, her, our, their, which always combine with nouns and premodify them as attributes and the absolute forms – mine, yours, his, hers, ours, yours, theirs, which do not combine with nouns, but function as their substitutes. Thus, they may be adjective-pronouns when used as conjoint forms and noun-pronouns when used as absolute forms. However there’s no absolute form corresponding to the pronoun it.

Reflexive pronouns

Reflexive pronouns indicate identity between the person or non-person they denote and that denoted by the subject of the sentence. They are: myself, yourself, herself, himself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, derived from personal pronouns and oneself, derived from the indefinite pronoun one.

Reciprocal pronouns

Reciprocal pronouns indicate a mutual relationship between two or more than two persons, or occasionally non-persons (each other, one another) who are at the same time the doer and the object of the same action.

Demonstrative pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns point to persons or non-persons or their properties: this (these), that (those), such. The first two of them have the category of number. This (these) and that (those) function both as noun-pronouns and adjective-pronouns; such functions only as an adjective-pronoun.

Indefinite pronouns

Indefinite pronouns indicate persons or non-persons or else their properties in general way without defining the class of object they belong to, class or properties they possess. They are: some, any, somebody, anybody, something, anything, one.

Negative pronouns

Negative pronouns as the term implies render the general meaning of the sentence negative.

They are: no, none, nothing, nobody, no one, neither. No is used only as an adjective-pronoun, none, nothing, nothing , nobody, no one as noun-pronoun, neither may be used as both adjective-pronouns and noun-pronouns. Only two negative pronouns have the category of case – nobody and no one.

Detaching pronouns

Detaching pronouns indicate the detachment of some object from another object of the same class. There are only two pronouns of this subclass – other and another. They are both used as noun – pronouns and adjective-pronouns.

Universal pronouns

Universal pronouns indicate all objects (persons and non-persons) as one whole or any representative of the group separately. They are: all, both, each, every, everything, everybody, everyone, either. Only pronouns everybody and everyone have the category of case (everybody – everybody’s, everyone – everyone’s), others have no grammatical categories.

Interrogative pronouns

Interrogative pronouns indicate persons or non-persons or their properties as unknown to the speaker and requiring to be named in the answer. Accordingly they are used to form special (or pronominal) questions. The subclass of pronouns comprises who, whose, what, which, whoever, whatever, whichever. Of them only the pronoun who has the category of case – the objective case is whom. However there is a strong tendency in colloquial language to use who instead of whom with prepositions.

Conjunctive pronouns

This subclass comprises derivatives of interrogative pronouns: whom, whose, what, which, whoever, whatever, whichever. They are identical with their interrogative pronouns in all characteristics. The difference between the two classes lies in that the conjunctive pronouns, along with their syntactical function in the clause, connect subordinate clause to the main clause.

Relative pronouns

Relative pronouns refer to persons or non-persons and open attributive clauses which modify words denoting these persons or non-persons and open attributive clauses which modify words denoting these persons or non-persons. They are who, whose, which, that. Who, like its homonyms, has the category of case (who – whom), the others have no categories.

Classification of numerals

The numeral denote an abstract number or the order of things in succession. In accordance with this distinction the numerals fall into two groups:

– cardinal numbers (cardinals)

– ordinal numbers (ordinals)

Cardinal numbers in their turn may be simple, derived and compound words.

Simple cardinals comprise numbers from one to twelve, also hundred, thousand, million.

Among derived we may single out cardinals from thirteen to nineteen. These numerals are built with use of a derivation suffixes –teen and –ty (the latter denotes tens)

The cardinals from twenty-one to twenty-nine, from thirty-one to thirty-nine etc. and those over hundred are compounds.

In cardinals including hundreds and thousands the words denoting units and tens are joined to those denoting hundreds, thousands, by means of the conjunction and.

The words for common fractions are written hyphenated. The mixed numbers as well as numbers with thousands and hundreds are connected with the conjunction and. In decimal fractions the numerals denoting decimals are joined to those denoting whole numbers by means of the words point or decimal

Ordinal numbers are also divided into simple, derived and compound ones.

To simple ordinals we can put first, second and third

Derived ordinal numbers comprise those derived from the simple, and derivative cardinals by means of the suffix –th.

The compound ordinals are formed from composite cardinals where only the last component has the form of the ordinal.

Numerals do not undergo any morphological changes which are caused by the absence of any morphological categories. However there are some features that differ them from nouns. Such numerals as ten, hundred, thousand do not have plural forms whereas the corresponding homonymous nouns ten, hundred, thousand do have these form.

Conclusion

According to Korbina E. all pronouns may be divided into twelve subclasses. However, some other scholars restrict the number of these subclasses to ten, pointing reflexive and possessive pronouns to be essential constituents of the subclass of personal pronouns. Pronouns of other subclasses are grouped according to their function and, sometimes, to their morphological structure.

Numerals can be divided into cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers. They may be simple, derived and compound. Derivatives are formed with the affixes –teen, and –ty for cardinal numbers and –th for ordinal. In the latter the affix is added to the cardinal number to form an ordinal one.

Introduction

The topicality of the research is supposed by need of general analysis of the subject using diachronic and synchronic approaches.

Thus the aim of the research is to analyze pronouns and numerals from point of view of their origin, morphological and syntactic characteristics.

To achieve the aim it is necessary to cover the following tasks:

1. Analyze changes that occurred in pronouns and numerals during the history.
2. Analyze the morphological structure of pronouns and numeral, and the classification.
3. Analyze the syntactic functions of pronouns and numerals.

To fulfill the task we referred to the works of modern linguists and internet resources.

Development of the pronoun during the history of English language

The pronoun is a functional part of speech, which may replace a noun and perform its syntactic role. It has been several periods in development of the pronoun: primary changes that occurred in Old English during the period of its formation, further changes in the Middle and Modern English.

Old English pronouns fell roughly under the same main classes and groups as modern pronouns. The classes included personal, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite pronouns. Relative, possessive and reflexive pronouns had not been fully developed and had no distinctive features in some cases. The grammatical categories of the pronoun were either similar to those of nouns (“the noun-pronoun”) or to adjectives (“the adjective pronoun”). The pronoun also had some specific features that distinguished it from other parts of speech.

Short characteristic of the Old English pronoun

Personal pronouns

There had been three numbers (singular, dual, plural) in the 1st and 2nd person and two (singular and plural) in the 3rd person. Unlike noun that had four cases distinction, the pronoun started its way to simplification. Some cases got new functions within the class and in some way became more universal. Dative case obtained more functions such as those of Accusative in 1st and 2nd person. It is important to mention that the Genitive case performed two roles, that of the object and of the attribute. The latter prevailed in the Old English period.

Demonstrative pronouns

There were two demonstrative pronouns in Old English: the prototype of modern pronouns that and this. They were declined like adjectives according to a five-case system: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative and Instructive. The latter having a special form only in the Masculine and Neutral singular.

Interrogative pronouns

They had four-case paradigm and were represented by the prototypes of Modern English pronouns what and who. Some interrogative pronouns were used as adjective pronouns.

Indefinite pronouns

This group comprised several simple pronouns and a large number of compounds.

Personal and demonstrative pronouns were sometimes used in a relative function, as connectives.

Sort characteristics of changes during the Middle English period

Personal pronouns

There appeared new forms of personal pronouns: 3rd person feminine singular and third person plural. Their appearance was caused by changes in the phonetic system of the language.

Demonstrative pronouns

All demonstrative pronouns had been divided into those of long and short distance. Unlike the gender and case distinction existing in the Old English pronouns, the Middle English period brought some considerable changes, having cut off the category of gender. Before that it had been a kind of indicator in the Old English manuscripts. Thus the Middle English period brought about huge movements towards simplification when speaking about demonstrative pronouns.

Absolute possessive pronouns

This, completely new, group of pronouns appeared in 14th century. First it was mostly used when the word began with a vowel, but then, again thanks to the quickly developing process of total simplification, the forms became widely used. The pronouns belonging to this group are my and thy (modern my and your). Later, in 15th and 16th centuries there appeared a division of these pronouns into two groups. The pronouns of the first group were: my, thy, his, her, our, your, hire. The second group comprised such pronouns as: mine, yours, his, hers, ours, yours, and theirs. These pronouns were used at the absolute end of a sentence, that is why they were given such name – absolute possessive pronouns.

Indefinite pronouns

In the Middle English period there appeared some new pronouns among the indefinite group. These pronouns were: both (it came from Scandinavian dialect), evrich (later, every), man, one, something, nothing, and anything.

English pronouns faced many changes during the history. Some form disappeared, some were replaced by more simple ones, some appeared as a completely new notion and in some time became essential for English grammar. Every change and every move toward enrichment of English language put it of the way of simplification. Apart of being morphologically complicated, modern pronouns that we use nowadays have more groups and forms but, at the same time, are simpler than Old and Middle English ones.

Development of the numeral during the history

In Proto-Indo-European all numerals, both cardinal and ordinal, were declined, as they derived on a very ancient stage from nouns or adjectives, originally being a declined part of speech. There are still language groups within the family with decline their numerals: among them, Slavic and Baltic are the most typical samples. They practically did not suffer any influence of the analytic processes. But all other groups seem to have been influenced somehow. Ancient Italic and Hellenic languages left the declension only for the first four cardinal numerals (from 1 to 4), the same with ancient Celtic.

The Old English language preserves this system of declension only for three numerals.

Here is the list of the cardinal numerals:

1 án – 20 twentig

2 twá – 21 twentig ond án

3 þríe – 30 þrítig

4 féower – 40 féowertig

5 fíf – 50 fíftig

6 six, syx, siex – 60 siextig

7 seofon, syofn – 70 siofontig

8 eahta – 80 eahtatig

9 nigon – 90 nigontig

10 tien, týn – 100 hundtéontig, hund, hundred

11 endlefan – 110 hundælleftig

12 twelf – 120 hundtwelftig

13 þríotíene – 200 tú hund

14 féowertíene – 1000 þúsend

15 fíftíene… – 2000 tú þúsendu

Ordinal numerals use the suffix -ta or -þa, etymologically a common Indo-European one (*-to-).

1 forma, fyresta – 15 fíftéoþa

2 óþer, æfterra – 16 sixtéoþa

3 þridda, þirda – 17 siofontéoþa

4 féorþa – 18 eahtatéoþa

5 fífta – 19 nigontéoþa

6 siexta, syxta – 20 twentigoþa

7 siofoþa – 30 þrittigoþa

8 eahtoþa – 40 féowertigoþa

9 nigoþa – 50 fíftigoþa

10 téoþa – 100 hundtéontiogoþa

11 endlefta –

12 twelfta –

13 þreotéoþa –

14 féowertéoþa –

The two variants for the word “first” actually mean different attributes: forma is translated as “forward”, and fyresta is “the farthest”, “the first”. Again double variants for the second nominal mean respectively “the other” and “the following”.

Mainly according to Old English texts ordinal numerals were used with the demonstrative pronoun þá before them. This is where the definite article in ‘the first’, ‘the third’ comes from. To say “the 22nd”, for example, you should combine the following: either twá and twenigoþa (two and twentieth), or óþer éac twentigum (second with twenty). So the order is different from the modern English, but instead closer to Modern German where “the 22nd” sounds like zwei und zwanzig (two and twenty).

During the Old English period both cardinal and ordinal numbers became shorter.

Later, in the Middle English period this process continued. In Modern English both cardinal and ordinal numerals have from one to two syllables.

There will always be subordinate clauses that will not fit into any of the types and subtypes which were considered above. Since it would be unsound to try and squeeze them into one of the classes so far established, professor Illyish suggests two ways of solving this problem: either we shall try to establish some new classes, based on the characteristic features of these clauses, or we shall leave them outside all classes, contenting ourselves with the statement that they are subordinate clauses.

One of the types is represented in the following sentences:

So the sooner the blocked runway – three zero – was black in use, the better it would be for all. [3, p.12]

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that the entire episode of the man with the attaché case could so easily be innocent, in fact, probably was. [3, p. 132]

The characteristic features of this type are, the particle the with a comparative degree of an adjective or adverb at the beginning of each clause, and the meaning that two actions develop in a parallel way: as the one develops, so does the other. Professor Illyish calls such clauses “clauses of proportionate agreement”.

Another type of subordinate clause, are termed “clauses of alternative agreement”, they may be seen in such an example:

He is said to have worn a coat blue on one side and white on the other, according as the Spanish or French party happened to be dominant. [6, p. 302]

Another type – “clauses of exception” is illustrated in the following example:

Miss Blimber presented exactly that she wore a shawl. Sentences of the type It is the emotion that matters have also to be considered here.

It seems better, therefore, to leave such clauses and others which may occur outside the exact classification, characterizing them as adverbial subordinate clauses only. [6, p.302-305]

 

Conclusion

According to the research, I would like to emphasize the most important points, mentioned above from the different investigations of the leading grammatists who worked in this field of the English grammar. First of all, adverbial subordinate clauses serve to express a variety of adverbial relations and, consequently, they are introduced by a great number of subordinating conjunctions. Asyndetic subordination is not typical of adverbial clauses (barring those of condition) since it is mainly the conjunction that differentiates one kind of adverbial clause from another.

The next important point is that the mentioned in my research types of the adverbial subordinate clauses and their grammatical and semantic functions should be remembered in order to avoid their incorrect usage and to distinguish them well. The generally accepted idea of such grammatists as Illyish, Rayevskaya, Gordon, Krylova, Blokh is that these types are as follows: adverbial subordinate clauses of cause, clauses of manner and comparison, clauses of concession, clauses of condition, clauses of place, clauses of purpose, clauses of result, clauses of time.

Adverbial subordinate clauses have subjects and verbs and sometimes objects. They do not express a complete thought. Adverbial clauses function to modify verbs, adjectives, or another adverbs. As for their position in the sentence, such types of subordinate clauses are dependent clauses – they can not stand by themselves. Without the main part of the sentence adverbial subordinate clauses are incomplete.

Of the three types of adverbial complements – qualitative, quantitative and circumstantial – adverbial clauses mostly function as the last mentioned, as adverbials of situation or external conditions.

Adverbial clauses may occupy different places in the complex sentence. They occur before their principal clause, after it, and even within it, which shows that the position of adverbial clauses (like that of adverbial complements in simple sentences) is less fixed and rigid than that of other subordinate clauses functioning as secondary parts.

 

General Summary

Proceeding from the said insights, the whole system of adverbial clauses is to be divided into four groups, which can be pointed out from the investigations of professor Blokh. They are:

the first group includes clauses of time and clauses of place. Their common semantic basis is to be defined as “localization” — respectively, temporal and spatial. Both types of clauses are subject to two major subdivisions, one concerning the local identification, the other concerning the range of functions. Local identification is essentially determined by subordinators. According to the choice of connector, clauses of time and place are divided into general and particularizing. The general local identification is expressed by the non-marking conjunctions when and where;

the second group of adverbial clauses includes clauses of manner and comparison. The common semantic basis of their functions can be defined as “qualification”, since they give a qualification to the action or event rendered by the principal clause. The identification of these clauses be achieved by applying the traditional question-transformation;

the third and most numerous group of adverbial clauses includes “classical” clauses of different circumstantial semantics, i.e. semantics connected with the meaning of the principal clause by various circumstantial associations; here belong clauses of attendant event, condition, cause, reason, result (consequence), concession, purpose. Thus, the common semantic basis of all these clauses can be defined as “circumstance”. The whole group should be divided into two subgroups, the first being composed by clauses of “attendant circumstance”; the second, by clauses of “immediate circumstance”. The construction of attendant circumstance may be taken to render contrast. Clauses of immediate circumstance present a vast and complicated system of constructions expressing different explanations of events, reasonings and speculations in connection with them;

the fourth group of adverbial clauses is formed by parenthetical or insertive constructions. Parenthetical clauses are joined to the principal clause on a looser basis than the other adverbial clauses; still, they do form with the principal clause a syntactic sentential unity, which is easily proved by the procedure of diagnostic elimination.

 

The List Of Used Literature

1. Blokh M.Y. A course in Theoretical English Grammar. – M., 1983. – 384 p.
2. Ganshyna М.N. Vasilevskaya N.I. English Grammar. – М., 1964. – 438 с.
3. Gordon E.M., Krylova I.P. A grammar of present-day English. – M., 1980. – 335 p.
4. Ilyish B.A. The structure of Modern English. – L., 1971. – 367 p.
5. Kharitonov I.K. The English Grammar. – Nizhyn, 2003. – 209 p.
6. Rayevska N.M. Modern English Grammar. – K., 1976. – 304 p.

 

The List Of Illustrative Literature

1. Hailey A. Airport. – M.: Iris Press,2008. – 318 p.
2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (electronic book by Joan Rowling). – 644 p.
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (electronic book by Joan Rowling). – 167 p.
4. Melville H. Moby-Dick. – London: Everyman`s library, 1991. – 593 p.
5. Stephen King The girl who loved Tom Gordon. – New York, 2004. – 356 p.
6. Stine R.L. The New Year`s Party. – New York: A Parachute Press Book, 1995. – 193 p.

In real condition, both the main clause and the dependent clause are truth-neutral.

Although the most common type of real condition refers to the future, there are no special restrictions on the time reference of conditions or on the tense forms used to express them. The following examples may illustrate the variety of time relations and tense forms expressing them, for example:

If we don`t hear from you we send someone along. [4, p.644]

(Simple Present + Simple Present)

If he told you that yesterday, he lied. [3, p.184]

(Simple Past + Simple Past)

If she left so early, she will certainly be here tonight. [3, p.127]

(Simple Past + will “future”).

The truth-neutrality of an if-clause is reflected in the possibility of using such constructions as:

If you should manage to see her, please let me know. [7, p.88]

(Should + Infinitive in place of the Simple Present)

The effect of predication with “should” is to make the condition slightly more tentative and “academic” than it would be with the ordinary Present Tense.

A more formal expression of a tentative real condition is achieved by omitting if and inverting the subject and the auxiliary “should”:

Should you ask I’ll be there to help you. [4, p.348]

Some grammarians, such as professors Chernovatyi and professor Caraban devide all adverbial subordinate clauses of real condition according to the three main types:

1. The subordinate clauses with the condition and the result referred to the Present Simple. Example:

If the only thought appears, she makes herself think of something else. [7, p.79]

2. The subordinate clauses with the condition and the result referred to the Past Simple. For example:

The Ministry of Magic said I’d be expelled from Hogwarts if there was any more magic there! [5, p.16]

3. The subordinate clauses with the condition and/or the result referred to the Future Simple. They are:

If I get a bad reaction, I`ll die, she thought, but in the aftermath of her panic she didn`t care. [7, p.57]

Adverbial clauses of unreal condition

The precise grammatical and semantic nature of the switch from real to unreal conditions is obviously relevant to overlapping relations in such types of sentence-patterning

Clauses of this type are generally introduced by such connectives as: if, unless, provided, on condition that, in case, suppose (supposing), but that, once.

What has immediate relevance here is the grammatical organization of the conditional sentence, the verb-forms of its predicate, in particular. Example:

If he hadn`t had his little kit with the hyperdermic, I guess he would choked to death. [7, p.58]

The clauses of unreal condition are also divided into three main types:

1. The unreal condition in the Present Simple (in this case the condition is expressed by the Present Simple tense and the result – with the help of “would”).For example:

If she started to slide, she would grab one of those as she`d grabbed the alder at the edge of the stream. [7, p.54]

2. The unreal condition in the past.

– the result in the present (the condition is expressed with the help of Past Perfect and the result – with the help of would (could, might) + verb) Example:

If anything had happened, it would surely have been the first item on the news. [4, p.2]

– the result in the past (the condition is expressed with the help of Past Perfect and the result – with the help of “would (could, might) + Past Participle).For example:

If he had not got injured, he could have become a champion. [4, p.456]

[1, p.231-132].

Adverbial Clauses of Manner and Comparison

Sub-clauses of manner and comparison characterize the action of the principal clause by comparing it to some other action. Patterns of this sort are synsemantic in their value. Sometimes the implication of comparison seems quite prominent, in other cases the clause is clearly one of manner.

He read it through quickly and felt suddenly as warm and contented as though he`d swallowed a bottle of hot butter bear in one gulp. [4, p.159]

In patterns like She did it as best as she could the implication of comparison is hardly felt at all.

The conjunction as has a wide and varied range of structural meanings. It is often used to introduce sub-clauses of time and cause, and it is only the context that makes the necessary meaning clear.

Further examples of sub-clauses of comparison are:

Careful as he was, working at the very peak of his ability, he lost control at high speed. [2, p.53]

Adverbial Clauses of Place

Clauses of place do not offer any difficulties of grammatical analysis; they are generally introduced by the relative adverb where or by the phrase from where, to where, example:

She walked in that direction, then stood looking into the tangled darkness where young trees with thin trunks grew close together. [7, p.173]

Like in other types of complex sentences, clauses introduced by the adverb where are sometimes on the borderline between subordination and co-ordination, meant to continue the narrative associated with the previous statement rather than indicate the place where action took place, example:

Halfway along he passed the narrow alleyway down the side of a garage where he had first clapped eyes on his godfather. [4, p.5]

There has been some discussion in the works of professors Gordon and Krylova whether the word where introducing a subordinate clause of place is an adverb or a conjunction. The latter view was suggested by a certain analogy with the conjunction when introducing clauses of time. However, the possibility of the word where being preceded by the preposition from, as in some of the above examples, is a definite argument against its being a conjunction. [5, p.300]

Adverbial Clauses of Purpose

The grammatical organization of sub-clauses of purpose does not take long to explain.

What merits consideration here is the syntactic organization of the constituents of the complex sentence and the verb-forms in the structure of predication.

Clauses expressing purpose are known to be introduced by the conjunction that or lest and by the phrases in order that, so that. Example:

From its present height of twenty-eight thousand feet, it must descend some three and a half miles to where the air was denser so that passengers and crew could breathe and survive without supplemental oxygen. [3, p.158]

That has, perhaps, no rivals among connectives. It is well known to have a particularly wide range of structural meanings, but no ambiguity arises in actual usage. As always in language, the context will remove in each case all the other significations, as potentially implicit in that which in subordination may do the duty of a relative pronoun and a conjunction.

Infinitival phrases implying purpose relations are commonplace. Familiar example is:

It happened late at night, he sat near the doors to catch the gleaming shadows in the corridor. [4, p.205]

Adverbial Clauses of Result

Clauses of result or consequence will also exemplify the synsemantic character of syntactic structures. Their formal arrangement is characterized by two patterns:

clauses included by the conjunction that correlated with the pronoun such or the pronoun so in the main clause;

Ron’s euphoria at helping Gryffindor scrape the Quidditch cup was such that he couldn’t settle to anything next day. [4, p.522]

The owl was so small, in fact, that it kept tumbling over in the air, buffeted this way and that in the train’s slipstream. [5, p.158]

clauses included by phrasal connective so that. Example:

Nobody was glaring at him, grinding their teeth so loudly that he could not hear the news, or shooting nasty questions at him. [4, p.1]

Variation in the lexical-grammatical organization of such clauses is generally associated with variation in their meaning.

Instances are not few, for instance, when a clause of result is suggestive of the degree or the state of things indicated by the main clause. The moaning of such clauses is always made clear by contextual indication.

Temporal Clauses

Temporal clauses cover a wide and varied range of meanings. Relations of time between the action of the main clause and that of the subordinate may differ: the two actions or states may be simultaneous, one may precede or follow the other, or, say, one may last until the other begins, etc. The temporal clauses are represented by such conjunctions as before, after, since, until, when, as. Examples:

When people got lost in the woods they always found them. [7, p.53]

As she did it she thought of an “I love you Lucy” episode she`d seen on Nick and Nite. [7, p.93]

All is well, until one day the painter`s ghost appears at her home and she realizes that even now, the relationship is not quite over. [2, p.46]

Every time she tried the twist, she felt clumsy and stupid. [8, p.6]

Synsemantic in their character, temporal clauses have often a mixed meaning. In some patterns there is only a suggestion of the secondary meaning, in others it is fairly prominent.

In different contexts of their use sub-clauses of time may change their primary meaning. In some patterns there is a suggestion of conditional relations, as in:

When at home, do as the Romans do. (Proverb)

Instances are not few when temporal clauses are suggestive of causal relations, example:

Ten times he tried, and all ten times, as he passed through seventy miles per hour, he burst into a churning mass of feathers, out of control, crashing down into the water. [2, p.53]

It is to be noted that secondary meanings are generally signaled not so much by the grammatical organization of the sentence as by the lexical context which is the first to be considered relevant. [2, Internet sources]

Studying syntax in relation to vocabulary presents here its own point of interest.

Not less characteristic are the secondary meanings implied in a sub-clause of time in such contexts when it comes to indicate an action or state as contrasted to that of the main clause.

Examples of such sentences may be found in numbers.

He pretended to be adding notes to it while really peering over the top of the parapet. [4, p.534]

Synonymic alternatives of sub-clauses of time:

a) Gerundive Nominals:

She knew she shouldn`t be thinking of Jeremy while dancing with Todd. [8, p.4]

On the fourth night of the festival, just before leaving his room on this errand, William sat on his Balcony and flicked idly through the program to see what delights awaited the jury members during the rest of the week. [2, p.33]

b) Participial Nominals:

Breathing oxygen deeply, he planned his movement forward in the aircraft. [3, p.166]

The most important depiction of this type of adverbial clauses one can find in the works of professor Rayevskaya. The clauses of concession with all their grammatical complexity and variety of syntactic patterning as well as their synsemantic character, described in her investigations, will engage the attention next.

The component grammatical meanings in sentence-patterns of this kind are often not so clear-cut as it might be suggested.

It is very important to distinguish between the following types of concessive sub-clauses:

a) clauses giving the information about the circumstances despite or against which what is said in the principal clause is carried out. For example:

When the doors hissed open, they turned right and walked together towards William`s room, even though Pascale`s room lay in the opposite direction. [2, p.43]

Though she did not know it, he had stolen her heart that night. [8, p.18]

b) clauses which give some additional information associated with the content of the principal clause, the idea of concession in such patterns is somewhat weakened. For example:

Although she wanted nothing except to huddle on the pine needles and go to sleep, she set up the faw of branches again, then crawled in behind them. [7, p.152]

c) clauses with overlapping relationship. In patterns of this type there is a suggestion of the secondary adversative meaning. Example:

He extracted great happiness from squelching her, and she squelched easily these days, though it had been different in the first years of their married life. [7, p.16]

Complex sentences of this kind are on the borderline between subordination and coordination; though might be easily replaced by the adversative conjunction but. [8, p.275-277]

d) inserted and parenthetical concessive clauses are more or less independent syntactic units and are generally set off by a comma, colon or semi-colon, for example:

Harry, though still rather small and skinny for his age, had grown a few inches over the last year. [5, p.2]

Plump little Mrs. Weasley; tail, balding Mr. Weasley; six sons; and one daughter, all (though the black-and-white picture didn’t show it) with flaming-red hair. [5, p.67]

Though still severely shaken by the night’s events, he was happy to tell anyone who asked what had happened, with a wealth of detail. [5, p.98]

The conjunction though may introduce independent sentences. Examples:

Though Harry had by no means forgotten about Black. [5, p.81]

I never fancied broiling fowls; – though once broiled indiciously buttered, and judgematically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully , not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will. [5, p.23]

It will be observed, that concessive relations are, in point of fact, logically associated with causal and resultative meaning, the latter being to some extent inseparably present in any sub-clause of this type. [3, Internet sources]

The implication of pure concession is fairly prominent in prepositive sub-clauses included by although, though (often intensified by nevertheless in the principal clause). Examples:

Although Slytherin had been narrowly defeated by Hufflepuff in their last match, Gryffindor were not daring to hope for victory. [4, p.507]

Clauses of concession introduced by though and even though have much in common with sub-clauses introduced by if and even if. For example:

The breaking of a twig echoed loudly and the tiniest rustle of movement, even though it might have been made by an innocent sparrow, caused Harry to peer through the gloom for a culprit. [4, p.510]

In sentences introduced by the conjunction as there is sometimes a fairly prominent suggestion of causal relations. For example:

Uncommunicative as he was, some time passed before we managed to communicate. [7, p.78]

Concessive clauses may be introduced by the phrasal conjunction for all that, for example:

For all that Hermione had said about study and homework groups being allowed, he had the distinct feeling that this one might be considered a lot more rebellious. [4, p.255]

A special type of complex sentences is presented by patterns with concessive sub-clauses suggestive of the secondary alternative meaning. Here belong clauses introduced by however, whoever, whatever, whenever, wherever and such phrasal conjunctions as no matter what, no matter how. [5, Internet sources] Examples are:

Whatever Snape said, Legilimency sounded like mind-reading to Harry. [4, p.393]

These were solid, practical, hard-bitten, land-holding German peasants, who struck their mattocks into the earth deep and held fast wherever they were, because to them life and the land were one indivisible thing; but never in any wise did they confuse nationality with habitation. [1, p.117]

The secondary alternative meaning in clauses of this kind is so prominent that some grammarians are inclined to identify them as a special type of subordination. Such is, for instance, Jespersen’s point of view in Essentials of English Grammar where these clauses are classified as “clauses of indifference”.

Mention must also be made of reduced sub-clauses of concession that ‘are not infrequent both in informal spoken English and literary prose. For example:

The situation, though hopeful and miserable, let the girl think about something dream-like. [7, p.83]

Concessive relations overlapping with alternative meaning find their linguistic expression in syntactic patterns with functional transpositions of the Imperative Mood forms. [1, Internet sources] An example is:

Study as he would, he didn`t succeed in his grades. [8, p.96]

Adverbial clauses of condition

Conditional clauses are the most complicated and variegated among the clauses expressing the meaning of causality. They are introduced by such conjunctions as “if”, “unless”, “provided”, “supposing” and sometimes by the phrase “in case”. Sometimes they may be asyndetical (with inversion). [7, p.129] For example:

Had I come with her, she wouldn`t have been lost. [7, p.24]

An essential peculiarity of conditional clauses, or, it should be rather said, of conditional sentences (including both the main and the subordinate clause), is the use of verbal forms. [6, Internet sources]

Here the actual meaning of a verbal form depends entirely on the syntactical context: it may acquire a meaning which it would never have outside this context.

According to professors` Gordon and Krylova`s point of view the classification of conditional sentences is familiar enough. The main types mentioned in their researches can be observed in such three sentences:

If we can get to the bicycles, we shall beat him.

If they could derive advantage from betraying you, betray you they would…

If you had been arguing about a football match I should have been ready to take a more lenient view of the case…[5, p.306]

There may, however, also be other types, with the action of the subordinate clause belonging to the past and its consequence to the present, for example:

If she hadn`t done it, she would join us now. [7, p.47]

Subordinate clauses can also, like some types of clauses, get emancipated and become independent sentences expressing wish. From a sentence like

If I had known this in advance I should have done everything to help. [3, p.97]

the conditional clause may be separated and become an independent exclamatory sentence: If I had known this in advance!

In addition, professor Ilyish mentions some synonymic alternatives of conditional clauses:

1. a) Infinitival Nominals:

To have found out about it would have given him some chances to act. [5, p.28]

(Syn. If he had found out… it would have given him…).

1. b) Gerundial Nominals:

But for his having helped us we should not have been succeeded in this match. [5, p.65]

1. c) Participial Nominals:

Living with the Dursleys, he felt miserable. [5, p.102]

Conditional sentences can express either a real condition (“open condition”) or an unreal condition, which will be observed next.

Introduction

Clauses of adverbial positions constitute a vast domain of syntax which falls into many subdivisions each distinguishing its own field of specifications, complications, and difficulties of analysis. The structural peculiarities and idiosyncrasies characterising the numerous particular clause models making up the domain are treated at length in grammatical manuals of various practical purposes; here my concern will be to make theoretical and practical research of some principal issues of their functional semantics and classification. In my work will be mentioned the investigations of adverbial subordinate clauses of such prominent grammatists as Blokh M.Y., Ganshyna М.N., Vasilevskaya N.I., Gordon E.M., Krylova I.P., Rayevska N.M., Kharitonov I.K., Ilyish B.A. and some others. These scientists contributed much into the highlighting of the most significant information about the types of the clauses which will be observed in my research.

Speaking of the semantics of these clauses, it should be stressed that the most of the scientists mentioned above are sure that as far as the level of generalized clausal meanings is concerned, semantics in question is of absolute syntactic relevance; accordingly, the traditional identification of major adverbial clause models based on “semantic considerations” is linguistically rational, practically helpful, and the many attempts to refute it in the light of the “newly advanced, objective, consistently scientific” criteria have not resulted in creating a comprehensive system capable of competing with the traditional one in its application to textual materials.

On the other hand, the grammatists, such as professor Blokh, mention that it would be a mistake to call in question the usefulness of the data obtained by the latest investigations. Indeed, if their original negative purpose has failed, the very positive contribution of the said research efforts to theoretical linguistics is not to be overlooked: it consists in having studied the actual properties of the complicated clausal system of the sentence, above all the many-sided correlation between structural forms and functional meanings in the making of the systemic status of each clausal entity that admits of a description as a separate unit.

Adverbial clauses refer to a verb, an adjective or an adverb of the principal clause in the function of an adverbial modifier. For example:

As the days went past, Johnathan found himself thinking of the Earth from which he had come. [2,p. 63]

Then, as though this sort of thing happened every day, Johnathan Seagull began his critique of the flight. [2, p.67]

Adverbial clauses are connected with the principal clause by means of conjunctions: when, after, because, if, than, that, before, though, since, while, etc.

The conjunctions introducing adverbial subordinate clauses are numerous and differ from each other in the degree of definiteness of meaning. While some of them have a narrow meaning, so that, seeing the conjunction, we may be certain that the adverbial clause belongs to a certain type (for example, if the conjunction is because, there is no doubt that the adverbial clause is of cause), other conjunctions have so wide a meaning that we cannot determine the type of adverbial clause by having a look at the conjunction alone: thus, the conjunction as may introduce different types of clauses, and so can the conjunction while. With these conjunctions, other words in the sentence prove decisive in determining the type of adverbial clause introduced by the conjunction. [4, p. 356]

In professor Ilyish`s opinion , with reference to adverbial clauses a question arises that is not always easy to answer, namely: whether they modify some part of the main clause or the main clause as a whole. The answer may prove to be different for different types of adverbial clauses and the question will have to be considered for each type separately. The criteria to be applied in settling this question have, however, to be stated in advance. [6, p. 298]

In accordance with their relations to the principal clause, mostly expressed by the conjunction or connective pronoun they are introduced by, adverbial clauses are classified into those of place, time, cause, purpose, condition, concession, manner and comparison.

Some adverbial clauses, according to professors` Gordon and Krylova`s opinion, can be easily grouped under types more or less corresponding to the types of adverbial modifiers in a simple sentence. Others are more specific for the complex sentence and do not fit into “pigeonholes” arranged in accordance with the analysis of the simple sentence. Among those that will easily fit into such “pigeonholes” are clauses denoting place, those denoting time (or temporal clauses), clauses of cause, purpose, and concession, and also those of result. There are also clauses of comparison and of degree. [ 5 , p. 299]

Of the three types of adverbial complements – qualitative, quantitative and circumstantial – adverbial clauses mostly function as the last mentioned, as adverbials of situation or external conditions, as mentioned in the investigations of professor Illyish.

Adverbial clauses are optional, meaning they can be introduced and removed without changing the kernel semantics or grammaticality of the main clause.

Moreover, by modifying the entire main clause, adverbial subordinate clauses form close grammatical relationships not with any one word or phrase in the main clause but with the main clause itself. Subordinate clauses can therefore occupy any number of positions adjacent to phrases within the sentence.

 

Adverbial Clauses of Cause

An adverbial clause of cause indicates the cause for which the action of the verb is taken. Professor Rayevskaya mentions that introduced by the conjunction because sub-clauses of cause indicate purely causal relations. Examples:

And when she got to the edge she uttered a bewildered little laugh because the drop was hardly there at all anymore. [7, p.52]

Greta always refused to buy French fries because they were so fattening. [8, p.46]

Clauses introduced by as and since have sometimes overlapping relationships of cause and time. The necessary meaning is signaled by the context. For example:

The hard part was deciding which two Beatles to go out with, since all four of them were so far out. [8, p.4]

Causal relations may find their expression in clauses introduced by the conjunction for. Patterns of this kind are on the borderline between co-ordination and subordination. Only in some contexts of their use for-clauses come to be synonymous and go quite parallel with causal clauses included by because. [4, Internet sources] For example:

Husbands and wives were too familiar with each other`s nuances of speech for that not to happen. [3, p.128]

In most cases clause-patterns with for differ essentially from clauses introduced by because, as emphasized in the investigations of professor Rayevskaya. They generally give an additional thought to the completed part of sentence to extend the meaning of the utterance; they often come after a full stop and seem to function as separate sentences having much in common with clauses introduced by the conjunctions. [8, p.267]

Subordinate clauses of cause have their synonymic alternatives:

1. a) Infinitival nominals:

Obviously, to get the forty-seven dollars, D.O. had pawned the ring. [3, p.86]

1. b) Gerundive nominals:

The owl dropped its letter onto Harry`s seat and began zooming around their compartment, apparently very pleased with itself for accomplishing its task. [5, p.158]

1. c) Participial nominals:

The night being cold, we did not go anywhere. [8, p.45]

1. d) Reduced sub-clauses of cause (verbless predicatives):

Will they like her? They will not – too wild, too secretive. [8, p.76]

Cumuleme in writing is regularly expressed by a paragraph, but the two units are not wholly identical.

In the first place, the paragraph is a stretch of written or typed literary text delimited by a new (indented) line at the beginning and an incomplete line at the close. As different from this, the cumuleme, as we have just seen, is essentially a feature of all the varieties of speech, both oral and written, both literary and colloquial.

In the second place, the paragraph is a polyfunctional unit of written speech and as such is used not only for the written representation of a cumuleme, but also for the introduction of utterances of a dialogue (dividing an occurseme into parts), as well as for the introduction of separate points in various enumerations.

In the third place, the paragraph in a monologue speech can contain more than one cumuleme. For instance, the following paragraph is divided into three parts, the first formed by a separate sentence, the second and third ones presenting cumulemes. For the sake of clarity, we mark the borders between the parts by double slash:

When he had left the house Victorina stood quite still, with hands pressed against her chest. // She had slept less than he. Still as a mouse, she had turned the thought: “Did I take him in? Did I?” And if not — what? // She took out the notes which had bought — or sold — their happiness, and counted them once more. And the sense of injustice burned within her (J. Galsworthy).

The shown division is sustained by the succession of the forms of the verbs, namely, the past indefinite and past perfect, precisely marking out the events described.

In the fourth place, the paragraph in a monologue speech can contain only one sentence. The regular function of the one-sentence paragraph is expressive emphasis. E.g.:

The fascists may spread over the land, blasting their way with weight of metal brought from other countries. They may advance aided by traitors and by cowards. They may destroy cities and villages and try to hold the people in slavery. But you cannot hold any people in slavery.

The Spanish people will rise again as they have always risen before against tyranny (E. Hemingway).

In the cited passage the sentence-paragraph marks a transition from the general to the particular, and by its very isolation in the text expressively stresses the author’s belief in the invincible will of the Spanish people who are certain to smash their fascist oppressors in the long run.

On the other hand, the cumuleme cannot be prolonged beyond the limits of the paragraph, since the paragraphal border-marks are the same as those of the cumuleme, i.e. a characteristic finalising tone, a pause of two and a half moras. Besides, we must bear in mind that both multicumuleme paragraphs and one-sentence paragraphs are more or less occasional features of the monologue text. Thus, we return to our initial thesis that the paragraph, although it is a literary-compositional, not a purely syntactic unit of the text, still as a rule presents a cumuleme; the two units, if not identical, are closely correlative.

The introduction of the notion of cumuleme in linguistics helps specify and explain the two peculiar and rather important border-line phenomena between the sentence and the sentential sequence.

The first of these is known under the heading of “parcellation”. The parcellated construction (“parcellatum”) presents two or more collocations (“parcellas”) separated by a sentence-tone but related to one another as parts of one and the same sentence. In writing the parts, i.e., respectively, the “leading parcella” and “sequential parcella”, are delimited by a full stop (finality mark). E.g.:

There was a sort of community pride attached to it now. Or shame at its unavoidability (E.Stephens). Why be so insistent, Jim? If he doesn’t want to tell you (J. O’Hara). …I realized I didn’t feel one way or another about him. Then. I do now (J. O’Hara).

Having recourse to the idea of transposition, we see that the parcellated construction is produced as a result of transposing a sentence into a cumuleme. This kind of transposition adds topical significance to the sequential parcella. The emphasising function of parcellation is well exposed by the transformation of de-transposition. This transformation clearly deprives the sequential parcella of its position of topical significance, changing it into an ordinary sentence-part. Cf.:

… → There was a sort of community pride attached to it now or shame at its unavoidability. ...→ Why be so insistent, Jim, if he doesn’t want to tell you? … → I didn’t feel one way or another about him then.

With some authors parcellation as the transposition of a sentence into a cumuleme can take the form of forced paragraph division, i.e. the change of a sentence into a supra-cumuleme. E.g.:

… It was she who seemed adolescent and overly concerned, while he sat there smiling fondly at her, quite self-possessed, even self-assured, and adult.

And naked. His nakedness became more intrusive by the second, until she half arose and said with urgency, “You have to go and right now, young man” (E. Stephens).

The second of the border-line phenomena in question is the opposite of parcellation, it consists in forcing two different sentences into one, i.e. in transposing a cumuleme into a sentence. The cumuleme-sentence construction is characteristic of uncareful and familiar speech; in a literary text it is used for the sake of giving a vivid verbal characteristic to a personage. E.g.:

I’m not going to disturb her and that’s flat, miss (A. Christie). The air-hostess came down the aisle then to warn passengers they were about to land and please would everyone fasten their safety belts (B. Hedworth).

The transposition of a cumuleme into a sentence occurs also in literary passages dealing with reasoning and mental perceptions. E.g.:

If there were moments when Soames felt cordial, they were such as these. He had nothing against the young man; indeed, he rather liked the look of him; but to see the last of almost anybody was in a sense a relief; besides, there was this question of what he had overheard, and to have him about the place without knowing would be a continual temptation to compromise with one’s dignity and ask him what it was (J. Galsworthy).

As is seen from the example, one of the means of transposing a cumuleme into a sentence in literary speech is the use of half-finality punctuation marks (here, a semicolon).

Text formation

Neither cumulemes, nor paragraphs form the upper limit of textual units of speech. Paragraphs are connected within the framework of larger elements of texts making up different paragraph groupings. Thus, above the process of cumulation as syntactic connection of separate sentences, supra-cumulation should be discriminated as connection of cumulemes and paragraphs into larger textual unities of the correspondingly higher subtopical status. Cf.:

… That first slip with my surname was just like him; and afterwards, particularly when he was annoyed, apprehensive, or guilty because of me, he frequently called me Ellis.

So, in the smell of Getliffe’s tobacco, I listened to him as he produced case after case, sometimes incomprehensibly, because of his allusive slang, often inaccurately. He loved the law (C. P. Snow).

In the given example, the sentence beginning the second paragraph is cumulated (i.e. supra-cumulated) to the previous paragraph, thus making the two of them into a paragraph grouping.

Moreover, even larger stretches of text than primary paragraph groupings can be supra-cumulated to one another in the syntactic sense, such as chapters and other compositional divisions. For instance, compare the end of Chapter XXIII and the beginning of Chapter XXIV of J. Galsworthy’s “Over the River”:

… She went back to Condaford with her father by the morning train, repeating to her Aunt the formula: “I’m not going to be ill.”

But she was ill, and for a month in her conventional room at Condaford often wished she were dead and done with. She might, indeed, quite easily have died…

Can, however, these phenomena signify that the sentence is simply a sub-unit in language system, and that “real” informative-syntactic elements of this system are not sentences, but various types of cumulemes or supra-cumulemes? — In no wise.

Conclusion

The grammar of a language is an analysis of the various functions performed by the words of the language, as they are used by native speakers and writers.

There are many different ways of analyzing a language. In such an analysis, words can be given various names, depending on the function which they perform. For instance, words which perform the function of naming things are commonly referred to as nouns, and words which perform the function of expressing states or actions are commonly referred to as verbs.

Supra-sentential connections cannot be demonstrative of the would-be “secondary”, “sub-level” role of the sentence as an element of syntax by the mere fact that all the cumulative and occursive relations in speech, as we have seen from the above analysis, are effected by no other unit than the sentence, and by no other structure than the inner structure of the sentence; the sentence remains the central structural-syntactic element in all the formations of topical significance. Thus, even in the course of a detailed study of various types of supra-sentential constructions, the linguist comes to the confirmation of the classical truth that the two basic units of language are the word and the sentence: the word as a unit of nomination, the sentence as a unit of predication. And it is through combining different sentence-predications that topical reflections of reality are achieved in all the numerous forms of lingual intercourse.

Discussion

The study conducted provides a clear insight into the matter at hand in the developing of skis required in critical thinking. The results obtained from week one of the study revealed that the students were more nervous when approaching the minute papers and completed the task relatively fast. In composing the data on the minute papers provide from them they portrayed seriousness and were mostly quiet, and there was minimal disturbance from them.

The prompts used in the study were derived from the lessons taught during the session as it was relevant that the students were given the best chance to show their critical thinking skills. The participants were eager to discuss the results from the tests, and it implied that most of them were willing to improve their critical thinking skills and this was granted to them after confirming that all papers were brought in (Ennis, 1993). The initial papers were interesting as they provide the insight of areas that needed attention as it gave insight into their thinking.

It is evident from the results of the methods used that it revealed the use of minute papers improved the critical thinking skills of the students over the length of time the procedure was in process. The students were able with time to critically read the materials and situations that was assigned to them in the minute papers. The activities as received from the teachers’ feedback indicated that the participants of this study in the first encounters of the process lacked the canny ability to interpret and recognize the facts in the readings given to them.

During the second and third week they showed an improvement as they clearly indicated that they knew gathered all the information on the matter and interpreted the means on the same, learned to identify the importance and before making any decision on the same compare the resources available to them basing their final decision on fact and giving elaborate reasons to their conclusions and why. The results were brought back to the participants, and they were allowed to share them amongst themselves to serve as an eye-opener.

The second week of the study had poor results from the students involved in the study. The number of scores from the students considerably decreased and the writings from the minute paper showed that they did not employ the critical thinking skills as it would have been expected from them with the progression of the study (Nilson, 2016). Even though they showed signs of understanding the requirements of the prompt, many of them lost focus in utilizing their skills as this was evident from the fewer writings that were received from them.

It seemed like the students had grown accustomed to the exercise and the low scores indicated boredom, and this might have installed a level of rebellious activity from them. The answers generated from the students showed a lack of utilization of the critical skills as observed from the compositions of the minute papers. This was in complete contrast with week one as it would have been expected for the results to improve with the progress of the weeks but no apparent reason was found as to why the students acted in this manner (Halpern, 1999).

The study moved into the third and final week, and the participants had become accustomed to the routine. The students showed anticipation for the prompt and the lesson to end so that they would compose the minute papers. More than seventy percent of the participants showed improvement in the results from the minute papers as compared to the start of the exercise. The minute papers also revealed that the amount of comprehension in the papers had significantly increased implying that the participants had maximized on the data and resources that were available to them.

A steady improvement in the display of critical thinking skills was observed as the compositions from the students showed more intuition in their work they submitted. The study was able to shape the students since the teachers and researcher had the insight into the problem at hand and they devised ways to improve the situation (Meyers, 1986). The use of minute paper provided the long-awaited chance to improve on critical thinking skills, and the skills were seen to improve as per the results from the three weeks the study took place. Great improvement on the students thinking was realized, and this showed that the trend would improve as time goes.

It is clear that skills in critical thinking are important to students not only in the classroom concept but also in the dealing with issues in real life situations. As such, there is the need to impart these skills as early as possible to the young individuals to prevent future mishaps and develop the ability of the students. The methods used in the research are clear as they provide an elaborate picture of the situation at hand and also take care of the presentations and the effectiveness of the lessons to both the teachers and students involved. Continuous exposure to such methods on a daily basis will help in the students having a broader approach to the situations they handle, and this will be paramount in developing and improving the skills required in mastering critical thinking (Brookfield, 2017). With the daily practice of said criteria, the students will be able to gain more understanding of what is required of them from the teachers and the surrounding environment.

With the help of minute papers, reviews and feedback from teachers the students will begin to question data that is allocated to them and this, in turn, leads to critical thinking on the information and concepts as well as the ideas they might have on the subject matter. It will prove useful as the students will take more time to understand concepts, be open minded in having different points of view and this will enable them to look deeper into details and analyze the facts that are obvious as well as try to find ways to work around the beliefs surrounding the matter without hurting the sensibilities of other people involved I the matter. This, in turn, will mean that the students will approach every situation they handle with care as they will now have better set of equipment. The critical skills gained will be used to break down the situation into categories and weed out the lack of evidence, inaccurate data, stump out the fallacies involved in the situation as well as investigating the loose information and contradicting beliefs related to the situation.

Conclusion

Following the research essay above, critical thinking is a very important factor in the academic performance of the college students. It was realized that critical thinking major elements in the college context involve a student evaluating an idea information to get the weight or the worth of the idea. Critical thinking also involves the synthesis of the ideas in the bid to get the most appropriate idea that is satisfying all the needs it is purposed to serve through using a variety of information sources when researching an idea. Critical thinking demands that a college student should be able to analyze an idea so that they can understand the information and the sources that had been used in developing the idea (Gambrill, 2006). The application of the ideas learned from sources in solving academic related issues is also composed of critical thinking. Critical thinking demands that a student in the college continues to get more knowledgeable as well.

The basic importance of critical thinking according to the research essay includes managing the various tasks that a student is required to handle when in the college. Critical thinking also helps students develop the good communication relationships and become mindful in their arguments, both in class and outside academic issues. Critical thinking helps college students to interact well with others and respond to their arguments in a way that shows respect to all the others in their academic environment. Critically thinking students ca, therefore, engage in discussion with others and come out having gained and managed to avoid interpersonal conflicts with others.

Critical thinking helps college students in making decisions that are mature, and that would leave them not depressed in their future. A student needs to make a path decision that conveniences he or her most and one that would meet all the needs of his or her academics. Setting a target is very important for college students. However, a student can only benefit from the target that he or she has set if it is achievable and realistic as per his or her academic potential. Critically thinking students set targets that would help them improve their academics and achievable as per their academic potentials. Critically thinking students are also characterized doing researches when they are open-minded and ready to accept any new idea that they come across. This means that critical thinking increases the chances of a student gaining more information concerning the ideas that they come across in the process of learning.

Critical thinkers are usually self-driven and hence good time managers. Critical thinking enables students to balance their time in the required way and talking the appropriate manner without waiting to be confined or controlled by the rules. Critical thinking encourages students to take a lot of researchers to gain the required information content. Critical thinking also expands students’ memory and hence can store information for a long period and use them at any time that they need them for application especially during the examination periods.

This paper has also talked about the intellectual errors that form a barrier to critical thinking among the college students. The paper explains that egocentric reasoning makes students poor in acknowledging others opinions, which is not as per the requirements of critical thinking. Some students also tend to believe in specific information sources. This prevents them from looking into other sources of information that could help them in getting advanced information concerning an idea. Rushing into making decisions and taking action on an issue without mindfully thinking about it also inhibits critical thinking among the college students. Students should, therefore, avoid engaging in issues that object critical thinking capabilities and think critically to benefit most from the critical thinking advantages. Critical thinking in this context is the key to excellence in college education. Life success will automatically come if a student. A college student should, therefore, understand all the six elements of critical thinking and reflect them in his or college life. All the importance of critical thinking that has been discussed above will be to the student’s benefits on a condition that he or she be able to avid the many intellectual errors that this paper has talked about.

 

References

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I have repeatedly shown throughout the present work that sentences in continual speech are not used in isolation; they are interconnected both semantically-topically and syntactically.

Inter-sentential connections have come under linguistic investigation but recently. The highest lingual unit which was approached by traditional grammar as liable to syntactic study was the sentence; scholars even specially stressed that to surpass the boundaries of the sentence was equal to surpassing the boundaries of grammar.

In particular, such an outstanding linguist as L. Bloomfield, while recognising the general semantic connections between sentences in the composition of texts as linguistically relevant, at the same time pointed out that the sentence is the largest grammatically arranged linguistic form, i.e. it is not included into any other linguistic form by a grammatical arrangement.

However, further studies in this field have demonstrated the inadequacy of the cited thesis. It has been shown that sentences in speech do come under broad grammatical arrangements, do combine with one another on strictly syntactic lines in the formation of larger stretches of both oral talk and written text.

It should be quite clear that, supporting the principle of syntactic approach to arrangement of sentences into a continual text, we do not assert that any sequence of independent sentences forms a syntactic unity. Generally speaking, sentences in a stretch of uninterrupted talk may or may not build up a coherent sequence, wholly depending on the purpose of the speaker. E.g.:

Barbara. Dolly: don’t be insincere. Cholly: fetch your concertina and play something for us (B. Shaw).

The cited sequence of two sentences does not form a unity in either syntactic or semantic sense, the sentences being addressed to different persons on different reasons. A disconnected sequence may also have one and the same communication addressee, as in the following case:

Duchess of Berwic… I like him so much. I am quite delighted he’s gone! How sweet you’re looking! Where do you get your gowns? And now I must tell you how sorry I am for you, dear Margaret (O. Wilde).

But disconnected sequences like these are rather an exception than the rule. Moreover, they do not contradict in the least the idea of a continual topical text as being formed of grammatically interconnected sentences. Indeed, successive sentences in a disconnected sequence mark the corresponding transitions of thought, so each of them can potentially be expanded into a connected sequence bearing on one unifying topic. Characteristically, an utterance of a personage in a work of fiction marking a transition of thought (and breaking the syntactic connection of sentences in the sequence) is usually introduced by a special author’s comment. E.g.:

“You know, L.S., you’re rather a good sport.” Then his tone grew threatening again. “It’s a big risk I’m taking. It’s the biggest risk I’ve ever had to take” (C. P. Snow).

As we see, the general idea of a sequence of sentences forming a text includes two different notions. On the one hand, it presupposes a succession of spoken or written utterances irrespective of their forming or not forming a coherent semantic complex. On the other hand, it implies a strictly topical stretch of talk, i.e. a continual succession of sentences centering on a common informative purpose. It is this latter understanding of the text that is syntactically relevant. It is in this latter sense that the text can be interpreted as a lingual element with its two distinguishing features: first, semantic (topical) unity, second, semantico-syntactic cohesion.

 

Monologue and dialogue

The primary division of sentence sequences in speech should be based on the communicative direction of their component sentences. From this point of view monologue sequences and dialogue sequences are to be discriminated.

In a monologue, sentences connected in a continual sequence are directed from one speaker to his one or several listeners. Thus, the sequence of this type can be characterised as a one-direction sequence. E.g.:

We’ll have a lovely garden. We’ll have roses in it and daffodils and a lovely lawn with a swing for little Billy and little Barbara to play on. And we’ll have our meals down by the lily pond in summer (K. Waterhouse and H. Hall).

The first scholars who identified a succession of such sentences as a special syntactic unit were the Russian linguists N. S. Pospelov and L. A. Bulakhovsky. The former called the unit in question a “complex syntactic unity”, the latter, a “super-phrasal unity”. From consistency considerations, the corresponding English term used in this book is the “supra-sentential construction” (see Ch. I).

As different from this, sentences in a dialogue sequence are uttered by the speakers-interlocutors in turn, so that they are directed, as it were, to meet one another; the sequence of this type, then, should be characterised as a two-direction sequence. E.g.: “Annette, what have you done?” — “I’ve done what I had to do” (S. Maugham).

It must be noted that two-direction sequences can in principle be used within the framework of a monologue text, by way of an “inner dialogue” (i.e. a dialogue of the speaker with himself). E.g.: What were they jabbering about now in Parliament? Some two-penny-ha’penny tax! (J. Galsworthy).

On the other hand, one-direction sequences can be used in a dialogue, when a response utterance forms not a rejoinder, but a continuation of the stimulating utterance addressed to the same third party, or to both speakers themselves as a collective self-addressee, or having an indefinite addressee. E.g.:

St. Erth. All the money goes to fellows who don’t know a horse from a haystack. — Canynge (profoundly). And care less. Yes! We want men racing to whom a horse means something (J. Galsworthy). Elуоt. I’m glad we didn’t go out tonight. Amanda. Or last night. El-yоt. Or the night before. Amanda. There’s no reason to, really, when we’re cosy here (N. Coward).

Thus, the direction of communication should be looked upon as a deeper characteristic of the sentence-sequence than its outer, purely formal presentation as either a monologue (one man’s speech) or a dialogue (a conversation between two parties). In order to underline these deep distinguishing features of the two types of sequences, we propose to name them by the types of sentence-connection used.