Grammar and Meaning: A Semantic Approach to English Grammar (Learning about Language) by Howard Jackson

Author:Howard Jackson [Jackson, Howard]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781317901150
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2014-06-11T04:00:00+00:00

Sentences

Elements of propositions (AGENTIVE, AFFECTED, LOCATIVE, etc.) are realised grammatically by members of word-classes (noun, verb, adverb, etc.) together with their appropriate specifications. Propositions are realised by sentences. We can, therefore, discuss the internal structure of sentences in terms of the combinability of classes of word, in the same way that we discussed the structure of propositions in terms of the combinability of semantic elements (situations types, participants, circumstances). On this basis, a sentence represents the combination of a verb, corresponding to a situation type, and a number of nouns, adverbs, etc., according to the syntactic dependency relations contracted by the verb.

A sentence may be viewed as consisting of a number of slots. One of the slots will be filled by the verb. The verb then determines how many further slots will occur in a given sentence. The verb give, for example, opens up three further slots in the sentence in which it occurs.

[29]

Someone had given John a drum [K28: 24]

Here, three nouns fill the slots in the sentence opened up by give: someone, John, drum. Fetch in [30] opens up two slots, filled by I and things; and in [31] smile opens up only one slot.

[30]

I'll fetch my things [P11: 19]

[31]

The registrar smiled [K24: 66]

As our previous discussion would lead us to expect, the syntax of these verbs is of course much more complex than these isolated examples would suggest. What they do serve to point up, though, is that a syntactic description which deals only in the number of slots in the structure of a sentence is not very revealing. We need a way of talking about the interrelationships between the elements in a sentence.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.