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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

Brookfield, S. (2017). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. John Wiley & Sons.

Colucciello, M. L. (1997). Critical thinking skills and dispositions of baccalaureate nursing students—A conceptual model for evaluation. Journal of professional nursing, 13(4), 236-245.

Desai, M. S., Berger, B. D., & Higgs, R. (2016). CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS FOR BUSINESS SCHOOL GRADUATES AS DEMANDED BY EMPLOYERS: A STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVE AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, 20(1).

Dwyer, C. P., Hogan, M. J., & Stewart, I. (2014). An integrated critical thinking framework for the 21st century. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 12, 43-52.

Ennis, R. H. (1993). Critical thinking assessment. Theory into practice, 32(3), 179-186.

Flood, P. A. (2015). Critical thinking skills and information literacy skills: Discerning online information among high school students. Liberty University.

Fong, C. J., Kim, Y., Davis, C. W., Hoang, T., & Kim, Y. W. (2017). A Meta-Analysis on Critical Thinking and Community College Student Achievement. Thinking Skills and Creativity.

Furedy, C., &Furedy, J. J. (1985). Critical thinking: Toward research and dialogue. New directions for teaching and learning, 1985(23), 51-69.

Gambrill, E. (2006). Critical thinking in clinical practice: Improving the quality of judgments and decisions. John Wiley & Sons.

Gokhale, A. A. (1995). Collaborative learning enhances critical thinking.

Halpern, D. F. (1998). Teaching critical thinking for transfer across domains: Disposition, skills, structure training, and metacognitive monitoring. American psychologist, 53(4), 449.

Halpern, D. F. (1999). Teaching for critical thinking: Helping college students develop the skills and dispositions of a critical thinker. New directions for teaching and learning, 1999(80), 69-74.

Halpern, D. F. (2002). Thought and knowledge: An introduction to critical thinking. Routledge.

Huber, C. R., & Kuncel, N. R. (2016). Does college teach critical thinking? A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 86(2), 431-468.

Jeong, A. C. (2007). The Effects of Intellectual Openness on the Processes of Critical Thinking in Computer-Supported Collaborative Argumentation. International Journal of E-Learning & Distance Education, 22(1), 1-18.

Kurfiss, J. G. (1988). Critical Thinking: Theory, Research, Practice, and Possibilities. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 2, 1988. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Reports, The George Washington University, One Dupont Circle, Suite 630, Dept. RC, Washington, DC 20036-1183.

LoBiondo-Wood, G., & Haber, J. (2017). Nursing Research-E-Book: Methods and Critical Appraisal for Evidence-Based Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Meyers, C. (1986). Teaching Students to Think Critically. A Guide for Faculty in All Disciplines. Jossey-Bass Higher Education Series. Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers, 433 California Street, Suite 1000, San Francisco, CA 94104-2091.

Mezirow, J. (1990). How critical reflection triggers transformative learning. Fostering critical reflection in adulthood, 1, 20.

Nilson, L. B. (2016). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors. John Wiley & Sons.

Niu, L., Behar-Horenstein, L. S., & Garvan, C. W. (2013). Do instructional interventions influence college students’ critical thinking skills? A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 9, 114-128.

Stupple, E. J., Maratos, F. A., Elander, J., Hunt, T. E., Cheung, K. Y., & Aubeeluck, A. V. (2017). Development of the Critical Thinking Toolkit (CriTT): A measure of student attitudes and beliefs about critical thinking. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 23, 91-100.

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.

Grammar deals with the rules for combining words into larger units. The largest unit that is described in grammar is normally the sentence. However, defining a ‘sentence’ is notoriously difficult, for the reasons we’ll now discuss.

It is sometimes said that a sentence expresses a complete thought. This is a notional definition: it defines a term by the notion or idea it conveys. The diffi­culty with this definition lies in fixing what is meant by a ‘complete thought’. There are notices, for example, that seem to be complete in themselves but are not generally regarded as sentences: Exit, Danger, 50 mph speed limit.

On the other hand, there are sentences that clearly consist of more than one thought. Here is one relatively simple example:

This week marks the 300th anniversary of the publication of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, a fundamental work for the whole of modern science and a key influence on the philosophy of the European Enlightenment.

How many ‘complete thoughts’ are there in this sentence? We should at least recognize that the part after the comma introduces two additional points about Newton’s book: (1) that it is a fundamental work for the whole of modern science, and (2) that it was a key influence on the philosophy of the European Enlighten­ment. Yet this example would be acknowledged by all as a single sentence, and it is written as a single sentence.

We can try another approach by defining a sentence as a string of words begin­ning with a capital (upper case) letter and ending with a full stop (period). This is a formal definition: it defines a term by the form or shape of what the term refers to. We can at once see that as it stands this definition is inadequate, since (1) many sentences end with a question mark or an exclamation mark, and (2) capital letters are used for names, and full stops are often used in abbreviations. Even if we amend the definition to take account of these objections, we still find strings of words in newspaper headlines, titles, and notices that everyone would recognize as sentences even though they do not end with a full stop, a question mark, or an exclamation mark:

Trees May Be a Source of Pollution

An Irish Airman Foresees his Death (title of poem)

Do not enter

But the most serious objection is that the definition is directed only towards orthographic sentences; that is, sentences that appear in the written language. Spoken sentences, of course, do not have capital letters and full stops.

It is in fact far more difficult to determine the limits of sentences in natural con­versation, to say where sentences begin and end. That is so partly because people may change direction as they speak and partly because they tend to make heavy use of connectors such as and, but, so, and then. Here is a typical example of a speaker who strings sentences together with and. The symbol <,> denotes a pause.

I’d been working away this week trying to clear up <,> the backlog of mail caused by me being three weeks away <,> and I thought I was doing marvellously <,> and at about <,> six o’clock last night <,> I was sorting through <,> stuff on the desk and I discovered a fat pile of stuff <,> all carefully opened and documented by Sally that I hadn’t even seen

How many orthographic sentences correspond to the speaker’s story? There is no one correct answer. In writing it we have a choice: we could punctuate it as one sentence or we could split it into two or more sentences, each of the later sentences beginning with and.

Grammarians are not unduly worried about the difficulties in defining the sen­tence. Their approach to the question is formal because they are interested in grammatical form. Like many people who are not grammarians, they are generally confident of recognizing sentences, and they specify the possible patterns for the sentences. Combinations of words that conform to those patterns are then gram­matical sentences.

 

Irregular sentences and non-sentences

Sentences that conform to the major patterns (cf. 3.13) are regular sentences, and they are the type that will generally concern us in this book. Sentences that do not conform to the major patterns are irregular sentences.

If I ask you to write down the first sentences that come into your mind, you are likely to produce regular sentences. Here are some regular sentences in various major patterns:

David and Helen have three children.

The liquid smelled spicy to Justin.

Some people give their children a daily dose of vitamins.

About a million visitors come to our city every summer.

Most irregular sentences are fragmentary sentences. These leave out words that we can easily supply, usually from the preceding verbal context. Here is a typical example in an exchange between two speakers:

A: Where did you put the letter? B: In he top drawer.

We interpret B’s reply as I put the letter in the top drawer, and that reconstructed sentence would be regular. Similarly, the newspaper headline Washington abuzz over missing intern corresponds to the regular Washington is abuzz over a missing intern. Fragmentary sentences can therefore be viewed as directly derivable in their interpretation from regular sentences.

Finally, we often say or write things that are not grammatical sentences. These non-sentences may simply be mistakes. But they may also be perfectly normal, although they cannot be analyzed grammatically as sentences. Normal non-sentences include such common expression as Hello!; Yes; No; So long!; Thanks!; Cheers!; and they include many headlines, headings, titles, labels and notices:

Traffic Chaos (newspaper headline) On the Nature of the Model (section heading in book) The Captain and the Kings (title of book) Naming of Parts (title of poem) Pure Lemon Juice No Smoking

In the next chapter we will be looking at the patterns of regular sentences, but first I have a few more general things to say about sentences.

 

Simple and multiple sentences

Here are two sentences placed next to each other:

[1] The inquiry left in its wake a number of casualties. I was one of them. I can combine the two sentences in [1] merely by putting and between them: [2] The inquiry left in its wake a number of casualties, and I was one of them. I can also combine them by putting a connecting word in front of the first sentence: [3] When the inquiry left in its wake a number of casualties, I was one of them. I can make a small change in the second sentence:

[4] The inquiry left in its wake a number of casualties, I being one of them.

A sentence or a sentence-like construction contained within a sentence is called a clause. Constructions like I being one of them in [4] resemble sentences in that they can be analyzed to a large extent in similar ways (cf. 6.8). The sentences in [2], [3], and [4] therefore all consist of two clauses. (Strictly speaking, the separate sentences in [1] are also clauses, but since they have only one clause each, it is convenient to refer to them just as sentences.)

A sentence that does not contain another clause within it is a simple sentence. If it contains one or more clauses, it is a multiple sentence.

Here are some more examples of multiple sentences with connecting words:

You can’t insist that your children love each other. The building was emptied before the bomb-disposal squad was called. When we returned three hours later, no wolves were in sight. My father always hoped that I would become a doctor and that must have been why he took me along when he visited his patients.

We will be looking more closely at multiple sentences in Chapter 6. Meanwhile, I will be using simple sentences to illustrate general matters about sentences.

 

Sentence types

There are four major types of sentences:

1. Declaratives (or declarative sentences)

She was attracted to an open-air job.

The new proposals have galvanized the normally disparate community into a potent fighting force.

2. Interrogatives (or interrogative sentences)

Do you have internet access at home? Where will you be going for your holiday?

3. Imperatives (or imperative sentences)

Open the door for me. Take a seat.

4. Exclamatives (or exclamative sentences)

How well you look!

What a good friend you are!

These four sentence types differ in their form (cf. 6.2- 4). They correspond in general to four major uses:

Statements are used chiefly to convey information.

Questions are used chiefly to request information.

Directives are used chiefly to request action.

Exclamations are used chiefly to express strong feeling.

It is usual to refer to interrogatives more simply as questions.

We will be discussing these sentence types and their uses in a later chapter (cf. 6.1-5). Declaratives are the basic type and I will therefore generally be using them for illustrative purposes.

 

Positive and negative sentences

Sentences are either positive or negative. If an auxiliary (‘helping’) verb is present, we can usually change a positive sentence into a negative sentence by inserting not or n’t after the auxiliary. In the following examples, the auxiliaries are

has, is, and can:

Positive: Nancy has been working here for over a year. Negative: Nancy has not been working here for over a year.

Positive: Dan is paying for the meal. Negative: Dan isn’t paying for the meal.

Positive: I can tell the difference. Negative: I can’t tell the difference.

The rules for inserting not and n’t are somewhat complicated. I will return to them

later (cf. 3.3f).

A sentence may be negative because of some other negative word:

She never had a secretary.

Nobody talked to us.

This is no ordinary painting.

Most sentences are positive, and I will therefore generally be using positive sentences for my examples.

 

Active and passive sentences

Sentences are either active or passive. We can often choose whether to make a sentence active or passive (cf. 4.15). The choice involves differences in position and differences in the form of the verb:

Active: Passive: Charles Dickens wrote many novels.

Many novels were written by Charles Dickens.

Charles Dickens and many novels are at opposite ends of the two sentences. In the passive sentence by comes before Charles Dickens, and the active wrote corresponds to the longer were written. Here are two further examples of pairs of active and passive sentences:

Active: Manchester United beat Liverpool at Old Trafford. Passive: Liverpool were beaten by Manchester United at Old Trafford.

Active: The Rambert Dance Company won the country’s largest arts prize, the Prudential Award. Passive: The country’s largest arts prize, the Prudential Award, was won by the Rambert Dance Company.

Actives are far more numerous than passives. Their relative frequency varies with register. For example, passives tend to be heavily used in formal scientific writing. The nature of grammar as a constituent part of language is better understood in the light of explicitly discriminating the two planes of language, namely, the plane of content and the plane of expression.

Units of language are divided into segmental and suprasegmental. Segmental units consist of phonemes, they form phonemic strings of various status (syllables, morphemes, words, etc.). Supra-segmental units do not exist by themselves, but are realized together with segmental units and express different modificational meanings (functions) which are reflected on the strings of segmental units. To the supra-segmental units belong intonations (intonation contours), accents, pauses, patterns of word-order.

The segmental units of language form a hierarchy of levels. This hierarchy is of a kind that units of any higher level are analysable into (i.e. are formed of) units of the immediately lower level. Thus, morphemes are decomposed into phonemes, words are decomposed into morphemes, phrases are decomposed into words, etc.

But this hierarchical relation is by no means reduced to the mechanical composition of larger units from smaller ones; units of each level are characterised by their own, specific functional features which provide for the very recognition of the corresponding levels of language.

The lowest level of lingual segments is phonemic: it is formed by phonemes as the material elements of the higher -level segments. The phoneme has no meaning, its function is purely differential: it differentiates morphemes and words as material bodies. Since the phoneme has no meaning, it is not a sign.

Phonemes are combined into syllables. The syllable, a rhythmic segmental group of phonemes, is not a sign, either; it has a purely formal significance. Due to this fact, it could hardly stand to reason to recognise in language a separate syllabic level; rather, the syllables should be considered in the light of the intra-level combinability properties of phonemes.

Phonemes are represented by letters in writing. Since the letter has a representative status, it is a sign, though different in principle from the level-forming signs of language.

Units of all the higher levels of language are meaningful; they may be called “signemes” as opposed to phonemes (and letters as phoneme-representatives).

The level located above the phonemic one is the morphemic level. The morpheme is the elementary meaningful part of the word. It is built up by phonemes, so that the shortest morphemes include only one phoneme. E.g.: ros-y [-1]; a-fire [э-]; come-s [-z].

The morpheme expresses abstract, “significative” meanings which are used as constituents for the formation of more concrete, “nominative” meanings of words.

The third level in the segmental lingual hierarchy is the level of words, or lexemic level.

The word, as different from the morpheme, is a directly naming (nominative) unit of language: it names things and their relations. Since words are built up by morphemes, the shortest words consist of one explicit morpheme only. Cf.: man; will; but; I; etc.

The next higher level is the level of phrases (word-groups), or phrasemic level.

To level-forming phrase types belong combinations of two or more notional words. These combinations, like separate words, have a nominative function, but they represent the referent of nomination as a complicated phenomenon, be it a concrete thing, an action, a quality, or a whole situation. Cf., respectively: a picturesque village; to start with a jerk; extremely difficult; the unexpected arrival of the chief.

This kind of nomination can be called “polynomination”, as different from “mononomination” effected by separate words.

Notional phrases may be of a stable type and of a free type. The stable phrases (phraseological units) form the phraseological part of the lexicon, and are studied by the phraseological division of lexicology. Free phrases are built up in the process of speech on the existing productive models, and are studied in the lower division of syntax. The grammatical description of phrases is sometimes called “smaller syntax”, in distinction to “larger syntax” studying the sentence and its textual connections.

Above the phrasemic level lies the level of sentences, or “proposemic” level.

The peculiar character of the sentence (“proposeme”) as a signemic unit of language consists in the fact that, naming a certain situation, or situational event, it expresses predication, i.e. shows the relation of the denoted event to reality. Namely. it shows whether this event is real or unreal, desirable or obligatory, stated as a truth or asked about, etc. In this sense, as different from the word and the phrase, the sentence is a predicative unit. Cf.: to receive — to receive a letter — Early in June I received a letter from Peter Mel« rose.

The sentence is produced by the speaker in the process of speech as a concrete, situationally bound utterance. At the same time it enters the system of language by its syntactic pattern which, as all the other lingual unit-types, has both syntagmatic and paradigmatic characteristics.

But the sentence is not the highest unit of language in the hierarchy of levels. Above the proposemic level there is still another one, namely, the level of sentence-groups, “supra-sentential constructions”. For the sake of unified terminology, this level can be called “supra-proposemic”.

The supra-sentential construction is a combination of separate sentences forming a textual unity. Such combinations are subject to regular lingual patterning making them into syntactic elements. The syntactic process by which sentences are connected into textual unities is analyzed under the heading of “cumulation”. Cumulation, the same as formation of composite sentences, can be both syndetic and asyndetic. Cf.:

He went on with his interrupted breakfast. Lisette did not speak and there was silence between them. But his appetite satisfied, his mood changed; he began to feel sorry for himself rather than angry with her, and with a strange ignorance of woman’s heart he thought to arouse Lisette’s remorse by exhibiting himself as an object of pity (S. Maugham).

In the typed text, the supra-sentential construction commonly coincides with the paragraph (as in the example above). However, unlike the paragraph, this type of lingual signeme is realized not only in a written text, but also in all the varieties of oral speech, since separate sentences, as a rule, are included in a discourse not singly, but in combinations, revealing the corresponding connections of thoughts in communicative progress.

We have surveyed six levels of language, each identified by its own functional type of segmental units. If now we carefully observe the functional status of the level-forming segments, we can distinguish between them more self-sufficient and less self-sufficient types, the latter being defined only in relation to the functions of other level units. Indeed, the phonemic, lexemic and proposemic levels are most strictly and exhaustively identified from the functional point of view: the function of the phoneme is differential, the function of the word is nominative, the function of the sentence is predicative. As different from these, morphemes are identified only as significative components of words, phrases present polynominative combinations of words, and supra-sentential constructions mark the transition from the sentence to the text.

Furthermore, bearing in mind that the phonemic level forms the subfoundation of language, i.e. the non-meaningful matter of meaningful expressive means, the two notions of grammatical description shall be pointed out as central even within the framework of the structural hierarchy of language: these are, first, the notion of the word and, second, the notion of the sentence. The first is analyzed by morphology, which is the grammatical teaching of the word; the second is analyzed by syntax, which is the grammatical teaching of the sentence.

Systematic nature of grammar

Modern linguistics lays a special stress on the systemic character of language and all its constituent parts. It accentuates the idea that language is a system of signs (meaningful units) which are closely interconnected and interdependent. Units of immediate interdependencies (such as classes and subclasses of words, various subtypes of syntactic constructions, etc.) form different microsystems (subsystems) within the framework of the global macrosystem (supersystem) of the whole of language.

Each system is a structured set of elements related to one another by a common function. The common function of all the lingual signs is to give expression to human thoughts.

The systemic nature of grammar is probably more evident than that of any other sphere of language, since grammar is responsible for the very organization of the informative content of utterances. Due to this fact, even the earliest grammatical treatises, within the cognitive limits of their times, disclosed some systemic features of the described material. But the scientifically sustained and consistent principles of systemic approach to language and its grammar were essentially developed in the linguistics of the twentieth century, namely, after the publication of the works by the Russian scholar Beaudoin de Courtenay and the Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure. These two great men demonstrated the difference between lingual synchrony (coexistence of lingual elements) and diachrony (different time-periods in the development of lingual elements, as well as language as a whole) and defined language as a synchronic system of meaningful elements at any stage of its historical evolution.

On the basis of discriminating synchrony and diachrony, the difference between language proper and speech proper can be strictly defined, which is of crucial importance for the identification of the object of linguistic science.

Language in the narrow sense of the word is a system of means of expression, while speech in the same narrow sense should be understood as the manifestation of the system of language in the process of intercourse.

The system of language includes, on the one hand, the body of material units — sounds, morphemes, words, word-groups; on the other hand, the regularities or “rules” of the use of these units. Speech comprises both the act of producing utterances, and the utterances themselves, i.e. the text. Language and speech are inseparable, they form together an organic unity. As for grammar (the grammatical system), being an integral part of the lingual macrosystem it dynamically connects language with speech, because it categorially determines the lingual process of utterance production.

Thus, we have the broad philosophical concept of language which is analyzed by linguistics into two different aspects — the system of signs (language proper) and the use of signs (speech proper). The generalizing term “language” is also preserved in linguistics, showing the unity of these two aspects.

The sign (meaningful unit) in the system of language has only a potential meaning. In speech, the potential meaning of the lingual sign is “actualized”, i.e. made situationally significant as part of the grammatically organized text.

Lingual units stand to one another in two fundamental types of relations: syntagmatic and paradigmatic.

Syntagmatic relations are immediate linear relations between units in a segmental sequence (string). E.g.: The spaceship was launched without the help of a booster rocket.

In this sentence syntagmatically connected are the words and word-groups “the spaceship”, “was launched”, “the spaceship was launched”, “was launched without the help”, “the help of a rocket”, “a booster rocket”.

Morphemes within the words are also connected syntagmatically. E.g.: space/ship; launch/ed; with/out; boost/er.

Phonemes are connected syntagmatically within morphemes and words, as well as at various juncture points (cf. the processes of assimilation and dissimilation).

The combination of two words or word-groups one of which is modified by the other forms a unit which is referred to as a syntactic “syntagma”. There are four main types of notional syntagmas: predicative (the combination of a subject and a predicate), objective (the combination of a verb and its object), attributive (the combination of a noun and its attribute), adverbial (the combination of a modified notional word, such as a verb, adjective, or adverb, with its adverbial modifier).

Since syntagmatic relations are actually observed in utterances, they are described by the Latin formula as relations “in praesentia” (“in the presence”).

The other type of relations, opposed to syntagmatic and called “paradigmatic”, are such as exist between elements of the system outside the strings where they co-occur. These intra-systemic relations and dependencies find their expression in the fact that each lingual unit is included in a set or series of connections based on different formal and functional properties.”

In the sphere of phonology such series are built up by the correlations of phonemes on the basis of vocality or consonantism, voicedness or devoicedness, the factor of nasalization, the factor of length, etc. In the sphere of the vocabulary these series are founded on the correlations of synonymy and antonymy, on various topical connections, on different word-building dependencies. In the domain of grammar series of related forms realize grammatical numbers and cases, persons and tenses, gradations of modalities, sets of sentence-patterns of various functional destination, etc.

Unlike syntagmatic relations, paradigmatic relations cannot be directly observed in utterances, that is why they are referred to as relations “in absentia”” (“in the absence”).

Paradigmatic relations coexist with syntagmatic relations in such a way that some sort of syntagmatic connection is necessary for the realization of any paradigmatic series. This is especially evident -in a classical grammatical paradigm which presents a productive series of forms each consisting of a syntagmatic connection of two elements: one common for the whole of the series (stem), the other specific for every individual form in the series (grammatical feature — inflexion, suffix, auxiliary word). Grammatical paradigms express various grammatical categories.

The minimal paradigm consists of two form-stages. This kind of paradigm we see, for instance, in the expression of the category of number: boy — boys. A more complex paradigm can be divided into component paradigmatic series, i.e. into the corresponding sub-paradigms (cf. numerous paradigmatic series constituting the system of the finite verb). In other words, with paradigms, the same as with any other systemically organized material, macro- and micro-series are to be discriminated.

Introduction

Language incorporates the three constituent parts (“sides”), each being inherent in it by virtue of its social nature. These parts are the phonological system, the lexical system, the grammatical system. Only the unity of these three elements forms a language; without any one of them there is no human language in the above sense.

The phonological system is the subfoundation of language; it determines the material (phonetical) appearance of its significate units. The lexical system is the whole set of naming means of language, that is, words and stable word-groups. The grammatical system is the whole set of regularities determining the combination of naming means in the formation of utterances as the embodiment of thinking process.

Analyzing the language from the viewpoint of the information it carries we cannot restrict the notion of information to the cognitive aspect of language. Connotative aspects and emotional overtones are also important semantic components of linguistic units.

The components of grammatical meaning that do not belong to the denotation of the grammatical form are covered by the general term of connotation most obviously relevant to grammatical aspects of style.

Grammatical forms play a vital role in our ability to lend variety to speech, to give “color” to the subject or evaluate it and to convey the information more emotionally.

 

Text grammar as a part of text linguistics

I will be using the word grammar in this work to refer to the set of rules that allow us to combine words in our language into larger units. Another term for grammar in this sense is syntax.

Some combinations of words are possible in English and others are not. As a speaker of English, you can judge that Home computers are now much cheaper is a possible English sentence whereas Home computers now much are cheaper is not, because you know that much is wrongly positioned in the second example. Your ability to recognize such distinctions is evidence that in some sense you know the rules of grammar even if you have never studied any grammar. Similarly, you operate the rules whenever you speak or write (you can put words in the right order) and whenever you interpret what others say (you know that Susan likes Tom means something quite different from Tom likes Susan). But knowing the rules in evaluative and operational senses does not mean that you can say what the rules are.

You acquire a working knowledge of your native language simply through being exposed to it from early childhood: nobody taught you, for example, where to posi­tion much. You study grammar, however, if you want to be able to analyze your language. The analytic grammar makes explicit the knowledge of the rules with which you operate when you use the language. There is a clear difference between the operational grammar and the analytic grammar. After all, many languages have never been analyzed and some have been analyzed only relatively recently. People were speaking and writing English long before the first English grammars appeared at the end of the sixteenth century.

Grammar deals with the structure of languages, English grammar with the structure of English, French grammar with the structure of French, etc. Language consists of words, but the way in which these words are modified and joined together to express thoughts and feelings differs from one language to another.

In a language description we generally deal with three essential parts known as phonology, vocabulary, and grammar. These various ranges, or levels, are the subject matter of the various branches of linguistics. We may think of vocabulary as the word-stock, and grammar as the set of devices for handling this word-stock. It is due precisely to these devices that language is able to give material linguistic form to human thought.

Practically speaking, the facts of any language are too complex to be handled without arranging them into such divisions. We do not mean to say, however, that these three levels of study should be thought of as isolated from each other. The affinities between all levels of linguistic organization make themselves quite evident. Conceived in isolation, each of them will always become artificial and will hardly justify itself in practice. It is not always easy to draw precise boundaries between grammar and vocabulary. Sometimes the subject matter becomes ambiguous just at the borderline. The study of this organic relationship in language reality seems to be primary in importance.

For a complete description of language we have to account for the form, the substance and the relationship between the form and the situation. The study of this relationship may be referred to as contextual level of analysis.

Grammar, whose subject matter is the observable organization of words into various combinations, takes that which is common and basic in linguistic forms and gives in an orderly way accurate descriptions of the practice to which users of the language conform. And with this comes the realization that this underlying structure of the language (as system) is highly organized. Whatever are the other interests of modern linguistic science, its center is surely an interest in the grammatical system of language.

Grammar and other aspects of language

Linguistic communications are channeled mainly through our senses of sound and sight. Grammar is the central component of language. It mediates between the system of sounds or of written symbols, on the one hand, and the system of meaning, on the other. Phonology is the usual term for the sound system in the language: the distinctive sound units and the ways which they may be combined. Orthography parallels phonology in that it deals with the writing system in the language: the distinctive written symbols and their possible combinations. Semantics is concerned with the system of meanings in the language: the mean­ings of words and the combinatory meanings of larger units:

• Phonology
• Grammar Semantics
• Orthography

Three other aspects of language description are often distinguished: phonetics, morphology, and pragmatics. Phonetics deals with the physical characteristics of the sounds in the language and how the sounds are produced. Sounds and letters combine to form words or parts of words. Morphology refers to the set of rules that describe the structure of words. The word computer, for example, consists of two parts: the base compute (used separately as a verb) and the suffix -er (found in other nouns derived from verbs, e.g. blender). Pragmatics is concerned with the use of particular utterances within particular situations. For example, Will you join our group? is a question that, depending on the speaker’s intention, is either a request for information or a request for action.

For descriptive purposes, it is convenient to deal with the components of language separately, but because of the central place of grammar in the language system, it is sometimes necessary to refer to the other components when we discuss the grammar.

The grammar of each language constitutes a system of its own, each element of which stands in a certain relation to, and is more or less dependent on, all the others. No linguistic system, however, is either completely rigid or perfectly harmonious, and we shall see in some of the subsequent chapters that there are loopholes and deficiencies in the English grammatical system.

Language is nothing but a set of human habits, the purpose of which is to give expression to thoughts and feelings, and especially to impart them to others. As with other habits it is not to be expected that they should be perfectly consistent. No one can speak exactly as everybody else or speak exactly in the same way under all circumstances and at all moments, hence a good deal of vacillation here and there. The divergences would certainly be greater if it were not for the fact that the chief purpose of language is to make oneself understood by other members of the same community; this presupposes and brings about a more or less complete agreement on all essential points. The closer and more intimate the social life of a community is, the greater will be the concordance in speech between its members. In old times, when communication between various parts of the country was not easy and when the population was, on the whole, very stationary, a great many local dialects arose which differed very considerably from one another; the divergences naturally became greater among the uneducated than among the educated and richer classes, as the latter moved more about and had more intercourse with people from other parts of the country. In recent times the enormously increased facilities of communication have to a great extent counteracted the tendency towards the splitting up of the language into dialects—class dialects and local dialects. In this grammar we must in many places call attention to various types of divergences: geographical (English in the strictest sense with various sub-divisions, Scottish, Irish, American), and social (educated, colloquial, literary, poetical, on the one hand, and vulgar on the other). But it should be remembered that these strata cannot be strictly separated from, but are constantly influencing one another. Our chief concern will be with the normal speech of the educated class, what may be called Standard English, but we must remember that the speech even of “standard speakers” varies a good deal according to circumstances and surroundings as well as to the mood of the moment. Nor must we imagine that people in their everyday speech arrange their thoughts in the same orderly way as when they write, let alone when they are engaged on literary work. Grammatical expressions have been formed in the course of centuries by innumerable generations of illiterate speakers, and even in the most elevated literary style we are obliged to conform to what has become, in this way, the general practice. Hence many established idioms which on closer inspection may appear to the trained thinker illogical or irrational. The influence of emotions, as distinct from orderly rational thinking, is conspicuous in many parts of grammar—see, for instance, the chapters on gender, on expanded tenses, and on will and shall.

The nature of grammar as a constituent part of language is better understood in the light of explicitly discriminating the two planes of language, namely, the plane of content and the plane of expression.

The plane of content comprises the purely semantic elements contained in language, while the plane of expression comprises the material (formal) units of language taken by themselves, apart from the meanings rendered by them. The two planes are inseparably connected, so that no meaning can be realized without some material means of expression. Grammatical elements of language present a unity of content and expression (or, in somewhat more familiar terms, a unity of form and meaning). In this the grammatical elements are similar to the lingual lexical elements, though the quality of grammatical meanings, as we have stated above, is different in principle from the quality of lexical meanings.

On the other hand, the correspondence between the planes of content and expression is very complex, and it is peculiar to each language. This complexity is clearly illustrated by the phenomena of polysemy, homonymy, and synonymy.

In cases of polysemy and homonymy, two or more units of the plane of content correspond to one unit of the plane of expression. For instance, the verbal form of the present indefinite (one unit in the plane of expression) polysemantically renders the grammatical meanings of habitual action, action at the present moment, action taken as a general truth (several units in the plane of content). The morphemic material element -s/-es (in pronunciation [-s, -z, -iz]), i.e. one unit in the plane of expression (in so far as the functional semantics of the elements is common to all of them indiscriminately), homonymically renders the grammatical meanings of the third person singular of the verbal present tense, the plural of the noun, the possessive form of the noun, i.e. several units of the plane of content.

In cases of synonymy, conversely, two or more units of the plane of expression correspond to one unit of the plane of content. For instance, the forms of the verbal future indefinite, future continuous, and present continuous (several units in the plane of expression) can in certain contexts synonymically render the meaning of a future action (one unit in the plane of content).

Taking into consideration the discrimination between the two planes, we may say that the purpose of grammar as a linguistic discipline is, in the long run, to disclose and formulate the regularities of the correspondence between the plane of content and the plane of expression in the formation of utterances out of the stocks of words as part of the process of speech production.

The formation of a one-direction sequence is based on syntactic cumulation of sentences, as different from syntactic composition of sentences making them into one composite sentence. Hence, the supra-sentential construction of one-direction communicative type can be called a cumulative sequence, or a “cumuleme”. The formation of a two-direction sequence is based on its sentences being positioned to meet one another. Hence, I propose to call this type of sentence-connection by the term “occursive”, and the supra-sentential construction based on occursive connection, by the term “occurseme”.

Furthermore, it is not difficult to see that from the hierarchical point of view the occurseme as an element of the system occupies a place above the cumuleme. Indeed, if the cumuleme is constructed by two or more sentences joined by cumulation, the occurseme can be constructed by two or more cumulemes, since the utterances of the interlocutors can be formed not only by separate sentences, but by cumulative sequences as well. E.g.:

“Damn you, stop talking about my wife. If you mention her name again I swear I’ll knock you down.” — “Oh no, you won’t. You’re too great a gentleman to hit a feller smaller than yourself” (S. Maugham).

As we see, in formal terms of the segmental lingual hierarchy, the supra-proposemic level (identified in the first chapter of the book) can be divided into two sublevels: the lower one — “cumulemic”, and the higher one — “occursemic”. On the other hand, a fundamental difference between the two units in question should be carefully noted lying beyond the hierarchy relation, since the occurseme, as different from the cumuleme, forms part of a conversation, i.e. is essentially produced not by one, but by two or several speakers, or, linguistically, not by one, but by two or several individual sub-lingual systems working in an intercourse contact.

As for the functional characteristic of the two higher segmental units of language, it is representative of the function of the text as a whole. The signemic essence of the text is exposed in its topic. The monologue text, or “discourse”, is then a topical entity; the dialogue text, or “conversation”, is an exchange-topical entity. The cumuleme and occurseme are component units of these two types of texts, which means that they form, respectively, subtopical and exchange-sub-topical units as regards the embedding text as a whole. Within the framework of the system of language, however, since the text as such does not form any “unit” of it, the cumuleme and occurseme can simply be referred to as topical elements (correspondingly, topical and exchange-topical), without the “sub “-specification.

Sentences in a cumulative sequence can be connected either “prospectively” or “retrospectively”.

Prospective (“epiphoric”, “cataphoric”) cumulation is effected by connective elements that relate a given sentence to one that is to follow it. In other words, a prospective connector signals a continuation of speech: the sentence containing it is semantically incomplete. Very often prospective connectors are notional words that perform the cumulative function for the nonce. E.g.:

I tell you, one of two things must happen. Either out of that darkness some new creation will come to supplant us as we have supplanted the animals, or the heavens will fall in thunder and destroy us (B. Shaw).

The prospective connection is especially characteristic of the texts of scientific and technical works. E.g.:

Let me add a word of caution here. The solvent vapour drain enclosure must be correctly engineered and constructed to avoid the possibility of a serious explosion (From a technical journal).

As different from prospective cumulation, retrospective (or “anaphoric”) cumulation is effected by connective elements that relate a given sentence to the one that precedes it and is semantically complete by itself. Retrospective cumulation is the more important type of sentence connection of the two; it is the basic type of cumulation in ordinary speech. E.g.:

What curious “class” sensation was this? Or was it merely fellow-feeling with the hunted, a tremor at the way things found one out? (J. Galsworthy).

On the basis of the functional nature of connectors, cumulation is divided into two fundamental types: conjunctive cumulation and correlative cumulation.

Conjunctive cumulation is effected by conjunction-like connectors. To these belong, first, regular conjunctions, both coordinative and subordinative; second, adverbial and parenthetical sentence-connectors (then, yet, however, consequently, hence, besides, moreover, nevertheless, etc.). Adverbial and parenthetical sentence-connectors may be both specialised, i.e. functional and semi-functional words, and non-specialised units performing the connective functions for the nonce. E.g.:

There was an indescribable agony in his voice. And as if his own words of pain overcame the last barrier of his self-control, he broke down (S. Maugham). There was no train till nearly eleven, and she had to bear her impatience as best she could. At last it was time to start, and she put on her gloves (S. Maugham).

Correlative cumulation is effected by a pair of elements one of which, the “succeedent”, refers to the other, the “antecedent”, used in the foregoing sentence; by means of this reference the succeeding sentence is related to the preceding one, or else the preceding sentence is related to the succeeding one. As we see, by its direction correlative cumulation may be either retrospective or prospective, as different from conjunctive cumulation which is only retrospective.

Correlative cumulation, in its turn, is divided into substitutional connection and representative connection. Substitutional cumulation is based on the use of substitutes. E.g.:

Spolding woke me with the apparently noiseless efficiency of the trained housemaid. She drew the curtains, placed a can of hot water in my basin, covered it with the towel, and retired (E. J. Howard).

A substitute may have as its antecedent the whole of the preceding sentence or a clausal part of it. Furthermore, substitutes often go together with conjunctions, effecting cumulation of mixed type. E.g.:

And as I leaned over the rail methought that all the little stars in the water were shaking with austere merriment. But it may have been only the ripple of the steamer, after all (R. Kipling).

Representative correlation is based on representative elements which refer to one another without the factor of replacement. E.g.:

She should be here soon. I must tell Phipps, I am not in to any one else (O. Wilde). I went home. Maria accepted my departure indifferently (E. J. Howard).

Representative correlation is achieved also by repetition, which may be complicated by different variations. E.g.:

Well, the night was beautiful, and the great thing not to be a pig. Beauty and not being a pig\ Nothing much else to it (J. Galsworthy).

A cumuleme (cumulative supra-sentential construction) is formed by two or more independent sentences making up a topical syntactic unity. The first of the sentences in a cumuleme is its “leading” sentence, the succeeding sentences are “sequential”.

The cumuleme is delimited in the text by a finalising intonation contour (cumuleme-contour) with a prolonged pause (cumuleme-pause); the relative duration of this pause equals two and a half moras (“mora” — the conventional duration of a short syllable), as different from the sentence-pause equalling only two moras.

The cumuleme, like a sentence, is a universal unit of language in so far as it is used in all the functional varieties of speech. For instance, the following cumuleme is part of the author’s speech of a work of fiction:

The boy winced at this. It made him feel hot and uncomfortable all over. He knew well how careful he ought to be, and yet, do what he could, from time to time his forgetfulness of the part betrayed him into unreserve (S. Butler).

Compare a cumuleme in a typical newspaper article:

We have come a long way since then, of course. Unemployment insurance is an accepted fact. Only the most die-hard reactionaries, of the Goldwater type, dare to come out against it (from Canadian Press).

Here is a sample cumuleme of scientific-technical report prose:

To some engineers who apply to themselves the word “practical” as denoting the possession of a major virtue, applied research is classed with pure research as something highbrow they can do without. To some business men, applied research is something to have somewhere in the organisation to demonstrate modernity and enlightenment. And people engaged in applied research are usually so satisfied in the belief that what they are doing is of interest and value that they are not particularly concerned about the niceties of definition (from a technical journal).

Poetical text is formed by cumulemes, too:

She is not fair to outward view, | As many maidens be; | Her loveliness I never knew | Until she smiled on me. |Oh, then I saw her eye was bright, | A well of love, a spring of light (H. Coleridge).

But the most important factor showing the inalienable and universal status of the cumuleme in language is the indispensable use of cumulemes in colloquial speech (which is reflected in plays, as well as in conversational passages in works of various types of fiction).

The basic semantic types of cumulemes are “factual” (narrative and descriptive), “modal” (reasoning, perceptive, etc.), and mixed. Here is an example of a narrative cumuleme:

Three years later, when Jane was an Army driver, she was sent one night to pick up a party of officers who had been testing defences on the cliff. She found the place where the road ran between a cleft almost to the beach, switched off her engine and waited, hunched in her great-coat, half asleep, in the cold black silence. She waited for an hour and woke in a fright to a furious voice coming out of the night (M. Dickens).

Compare this with modal cumulemes of various topical standings:

She has not gone? I thought she gave a second performance at two? (S. Maugham) (A reasoning cumuleme of perceptional variety)

Are you kidding? Don’t underrate your influence, Mr. O’Keefe. Dodo’s in. Besides, I’ve lined up Sandra Straughan to work with her (A. Hailey). (A remonstrative cumuleme)

Don’t worry. There will be a certain amount of unpleasantness but I will have some photographs taken that will be very useful at the inquest. There’s the testimony of the gunbearers and the driver too. You’re perfectly all right (E. Hemingway). (A reasoning cumuleme expressing reassurance) Etc.

Conclusions

Gerund is one of the most difficult grammar point in English and it must be studied perfectly by teacher before explaining students. It has a lot of positions in the sentence and students must learn these positions because the meaning of the sentences depends of the positions every word in English.

The derivation of gerund structures is various. Every structure has its own grammar meaning and position in the sentence. It was shown in this course paper how to build sentences with these structures and there are many examples which show the using of gerund.

Gerund is a specific structure because it can be used as Direct Objects. In this case it mixed with nouns. Gerund complements is differ from noun its grammar and semantic meanings. And it can be used as the Subject of sentences.

Gerund very often is used with prepositions. It is very important to know these structures because very often the preposition can change semantic meaning of the verb which is used as gerund. Most of that prepositions have their grammar meaning, too.

It is difficult to teach gerund because it often is mixed with infinitive. Gerund is used after particular verbs. There are not rules about these verbs and students must learn them by heart because infinitive has particular verbs, too. So, if students do not know them they can’t use gerund correctly. It is the main difficulty.

Sometimes using infinitive instead of gerund doesn’t make the sentence incorrect but it change the meaning of it.

It has an importance the frequency of using gerund in language. English is one of the European language where gerund is used the most frequently. And it makes a big difficulty for Ukrainian students because these grammar structures don’t exist in native language.

 

References

1. Cawley, F. The difficulty of English grammar for pupils of secondary school age. — MEd thesis, University of Manchester, 1957.
2. Conrad J. F. Gerund Clauses General Properties of Gerunds, Participles and Verbal Nouns. — at Britain: Prentice Hall, 1982.
3. Ellis J. Gerund and Infinitive. — London: Larson-Freeman, 2002
4. Freed M. Theory of English grammar. — Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1979.
5. Murhy R. English grammar in Use. – Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1988.
6. Swan M. Grammar. – London: Longman 1999.
7. Thomson A. J. & A. V. Martinet. A Practical English grammar. – Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1986.

In general to the V construction has future orientation. It speaks of potential events, while the gerund has present or past readings, it tends to ‘reify’ or actualize an event. This distinction is relevant for several categories of verbs that take both complements.

Also, in general, the infinitive complement carries with it a generic reading (cf. Freed (1979)) It suggests a series (= + countable, plural interpretation) of the event / action in question, occurring at different moments, throughout an unspecified stretch of time. The gerund on the other hand has a durative reading, which typically refers to the unspecified duration of a single event.

While these are very general properties of the two types of clauses, the specific meaning difference between a to-clause and an ing-clause depends on the semantics of particular main verbs as well. There is a first class of verbs showing little or no meaning difference between the infinitive and the gerund complement.

(17) afford, attempt, brook, decline, delay, disdain, dread, fear, forbear, neglect, omit, project, purpose, scorn, shun, plan, intend.

(18) a. It is needless to attempt describing the particular character of young people. I don’t attempt to strike out anything new.

1. Do you think I’ll brook to be / being worse treated than a cook?
2. He had declined attending the ceremony. He declined to take any part in the concern.

One should also include in this class the few, aspectual verbs that govern both infinitives and gerunds: begin, start, commence, continue, cease, go on, finish, stop (only gerund), because the two complements are interchangeable in almost all contexts. In spite of this, Freed (1979), Conrad (1982) have shown that each of the two complements may convey specific shades of meaning, emerging in appropriate contexts. When the gerund is used after aspectual verbs it makes reference to a specific event or a series of events locatable in space and time. Since the gerund refers to observed performances of an action, it is often qualified by manner adverbials or other adverbials describing various aspects of the event. This has to do with the more concrete range of denotations allowed by gerunds (events, facts, propositions), while the infinitives express propositions. (cf. Asher (1993) in the preceding chapter).

(19) a. He began abstractly brushing his hair.

He went across to the shelves and began removing books from them with admirable speed and dexterity.

The infinitive with aspectual verbs is best suited to refer to potential events, given its modal meaning. Thus the infinitive is appropriate to express dispositional properties of the subject, that is, what the subject can do, not what the subject is actually doing at some point in time. The infinitive is frequent with verbs of state, habitual predicates or psychological verbs, since they often express dispositional properties:

(20) a. She started to be interested in music late in life.

She began to read poetry when she was ten.

The infinitive is often chosen to express habitual events (the same event appearing at different points in time), sometimes with subjects designating a plurality; the event may be regularly or sporadically repeated:

(21) a. His intelligence never ceases to amaze me / (amazing me).

Two years later they began to write to one another regularly.

(22) a. While the man held a gun on her she continued counting / to count out hundred dollar bills.

While semantic factors of the type mentioned above may explain the preference for one form in a particular context, the two complements are, in principle interchangeable with aspectual verbs. Thus the infinitive may describe one single non-hypothetical occurrence, which is the realization of some dispositional property (23a,b). Similarly, the gerund can be quantified over, so that it may express generic activities, which represent, however, a generalization of observed specific events (23c):

(23) a. The train started to move.

To fill in some time, he found some College stationary and began to write

A difference of meaning has often been noticed between the gerund and the infinitive of verbs of affective stance (verbs of liking and disliking): like, love, adore, detest, hate, prefer (all with gerund and infinitive), adore, enjoy tolerate, resent, dislike (only with gerund complements). The difference between gerund and infinitive with verbs of emotional reaction is similar to the one described for aspectual verbs. The gerund after verbs of emotional reaction refers to a definite event; it expresses an emotional stance to real experienced occurrences. Also, it often functions like an anaphoric definite article, referring back to an already mentioned event.

(24). Bond liked fast cars, and he liked driving them.

The infinitive implies that there is a disposition for actions of a certain kind. What the subject likes, hates, etc. is a kind of activity, which will predictably appear under appropriate circumstances, though it need not have occurred. The infinitive is preferred to convey generic meanings: general rules, properties, etc. Thus in (25a) the subject has the property of liking to talk over dinner, etc.:

(25) a. Somas liked to talk during dinner.

1. A man likes to be waited on.
2. He loved above all to see the Guards drilling in the park.

The typically referential nature of the gerund, in contrast with the generic, dispositional nature of the infinitive is best brought out in sentences containing state verbs, where the infinitive may suggest several occurrences of a state, while the gerund refers to a continuous durative occurrence.

(26) a. We all love being in love. / We all love to be in love.

I adore being engaged. / I adore to be engaged.

However, since the gerund DP can be quantified over, the gerund too can express generic meaning, as in (27c-f), and, on the other hand, the infinitive may refer to a single event, possibly falling under some rule, or disposition (as in (27a, b)), so that again the two forms will often be interchangeable. (27 f, g)

(27) a. I hate to see you standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. b. I don’t like to be avoided.

We like having fun, and we like having it together. d. He likes going out with an attractive girl.

The choice of the gerund or the infinitive with these verbs may also largely depend on mood, tense factors of the main and the embedded clause. Thus the infinitive is chosen to convey futurity with respect to the main clause.

(28) a. I don’t like to refuse him, but I am afraid I shall have to.

He preferred to drive back through the night.

Given its modal meaning, the infinitive is strongly preferred when the main clause is in a subjunctive, hypothetical form. For example in the five-million word corpus investigated by the Longman grammar,” 75% of the occurrences of like + to-clause in fiction and news are preceded by would. (op. cit. 757).”

(29) a. I would like to have your little rowing boat tomorrow, and go out to the wreck and take some photos of that.

She would however have liked to have had a child.

All the examples so far have involved explicit control of the complement subject. This is the only possibility for infinitives. The gerund may also have a non- controlled interpretation, where the embedded subject is understood as impersonal, unspecified, as in (30b, c). Hence the gerund may be more ‘impersonal’ than the infinitive. Thus example (30b) does not imply that the main clause subject kills dogs or tortures animals, in contrast with (30a).

(30) a. I hate to have to kill my dog / dogs.

I hate killing dogs / torturing animals.

Consider the following verbs: need, require, want (= need), deserve, bear. These verbs are freely followed by gerund or infinitive complements. What is of interest with these verbs is the alternation between a passive controlled infinitive (the matrix and complement have identical subjects) and an active non-controlled gerund complement, semantically equivalent to the passive infinitive. A passive gerund is likewise allowed. Examples are given in (31) and (32):

(31) He deserves to be hanged for this.

He deserves hanging for this.

(32) a. Charles Beresford will require looking after one of these days.

1. The house wants painting and papering shamefully.
2. Only two small incidents need mentioning.

There is a larger class of exercitive verbs of communication which select an infinitive of control when in the main clause there is an indirect object, serving as controller. If there is no personal indirect object in the sentence, then these verbs select ing complements, or, if possible, they take an Accusative + Infinitive complement. These possibilities are illustrated in (33). Some of the relevant verbs are the following: allow, permit, advise, suggest, propose, recommend, prescribe, suffer, forbid, telephone, urge, etc.

(33) a. He allowed Tom [PRO to smoke].

He didn’t allow [there to be any dancing in the room]. (Acc+Inf)

The infinitive of control in (33a) is appropriate when there is interaction between the referents of the Subject and Indirect Object. The Indirect Object is the permitee in the permission granting act. In examples (33 b-d), no permitee is actually expressed. It is suggested that the matrix Su has enough authority to make a more formal pronouncement. Notice in (33), (34) that the gerund’s subject is often unspecified, rather than arbitrary generic.

(34) a. I advised her to wait until the proper time. / I advised waiting till the proper time.

1. I forbid you to smoke here. / Smoking cigars in the child’s room is strictly forbidden.
2. I recommend you to buy this dictionary. / I recommend buying this dictionary.

Other differences between V ing and to V complements of the same verb characterize very small groups of verbs, but they are not unpredictable in the light of our discussion so far. The verbs remember, recollect, recall, report, observe, perceive, notice are non-active in the Accusative + Infinitive construction (35a), but have a active interpretation when used with the gerund complements (35b).

(35) a. They reported the enemy to have suffered a decisive defeat.

They reported the enemy’s having suffered a decisive defeat.

The second example implies that the report was true in the speaker’s opinion, while the first leaves open the possibility that the report was false. Consider more examples, which bring out the same contrast:

(36) a. I remembered him to be bald so I was surprised to see him with long hair.

I remembered his being bald so I brought a wig and disguised him.

The gerund reifies the event, (to use the expression of Bolinger (1977)), which may be understood as past, even when it is not marked so. Thus, they resented his being away is ambiguous as to the time reference of the gerund, and on one prong of the ambiguity, is synonymous with They resented his having been away. In contrast, the infinitive is understood as simultaneous or future with respect to the main clause. If a past reading is intended, it has to be marked on the complement verb. Thus, They suppose him to be away cannot mean They supposed him to have been away.

(37) a. He could not remember coming from the bar to the chapel.

1. I didn’t remember to post the letter, so I still have it with me.
2. I shall never forget seeing her. (= ‘having seen her’, active reading) d. I forgot to tell my sister about the party. (… so I was surprised when she came.)

And there is contrast:

(38) I regret to say that you are a fool.

I regret saying that you are a fool.

The verb try + ing is implicative, indicating that the complement clause action did take place. In contrast, the construction try to V suggests a difficult or unsuccessful attempt.

It can be compared:

(39) a. He tried speaking French, but wasn’t understood.

He tried to speak French, but couldn’t.

Finally notice that, for some verbs, different meanings correspond to different choices of complement constructions.

The verb mean + inf has the same sense of ‘intend’ or ‘signify’, while mean + ing is used only in the sense of ‘signify’.

(40) a. He means to run over France. / *running over France.

To serve such a man would mean doing / to do something worth doing.

The verb want expressing volition takes an infinitive complement; want meaning ‘be in need of’ takes both kinds of complement.

(41) a. I don’t want to tell you.

The door needs to be painted / painting.

The verb stop allows the ing as a DO, but takes an infinitive only as adverbial of purpose. There is clear syntactic and semantic difference between (36a.) and (36b).

(42) a. When he has working, he would stop to take a few pipes of his pipe.

He stopped smoking cigars at table.