Functional meanings of sentences

Today it is obvious that the functional meanings of sentences make up syntactic categories, represented by the oppositions of paradigmatically correlated sentence patterns. Predicative semantics of the sentence is seen as expressed by syntactic categorial oppositions, which make up the following syntactic categories: the category of communicative purpose, or rather two communicative sub-categories: first, question is opposed to statement, cf..: Mary put the book on the table. – Did Mary put the book on the table?; and, second, statement is opposed to inducement, e.g.: Mary put the book on the table. – Mary, put the book on the table; the category of existence quality (affirmation and negation), in which affirmation is opposed to negation, cf.: Mary put the book on the table. – Mary didn’t put the book on the table; the category of realization, in which unreality is opposed to reality, cf.: Mary put the book on the table. – Mary would have put the book on the table…; the category of subject-object relations, in which passive action is opposed to active action, cf.: Mary put the book on the table. – The book was put on the table by Mary; the category of informative perspective, in which specialized, reverse actual division is opposed to non-specialized, direct actual division, cf.: Mary put the book on the table. – It was Mary who put the book on the table; the category of (emotional) intensity, in which emphasis (emotiveness) is opposed to emotional neutrality, cf.: Mary put the book on the table. – Mary did put the book on the table! and some other syntactic categories.

Paradigmatic oppositional evaluation helps explain the use of various syntactic structures in place of the others as contextual reductions of syntactic oppositions which transform the meaning of the sentence or create some additional stylistic colouring in syntax. For example, most of the intermediary communicative types of sentences perform distinct stylistic functions, and can be treated as cases of transposition of the communicative types of sentences presented in oppositions; for example, the rhetorical question is result of the use of the interrogative construction instead of the declarative in order to express strong negative evaluation of the event, cf.: How can you say a thing like this? = It was bad of you to say a thing like this; or, irony is often rendered by the affirmative construction used in the meaning of the negative (supported by specific supra-segmental lingual means), cf.: How clever of you! = It is not clever of you at all.

Classification of the sentence according to the purpose of the utterance

From the viewpoint of their role in the process of communication sentences are usually divided into several types. Scholars distinguish different numbers of communicative types of the sentence:

Two types: declarative and non-declarative.

• Declarative sentence – syntactic configurations which usually display an unmarked (i.e. expected) order of functional categories Subject, Predicate, Direct object, etc.

• Non-declarative sentences display marked (out-of-the-ordinary) configurations. They include interrogative, exclamatory and imperative sentences. Interrogatives are subdivided into. 1. “Yes/no interrogatives” (because they explicit either “yes” or “no” answers), 2. Open interrogatives or Wh-interrogatives. 3. Alternative interrogative and. 4. Rhetorical interrogative.

Three types: the declarative sentence, the imperative (inductive) sentence, the interrogative sentence. These communicative sentence-types stand in strict opposition to one another, and their inner properties of form and meaning are immediately correlated with the corresponding features of the listener’s responses.

Four types: declarative, interrogative (general, questions, tag questions, alternative questions, suggestive questions, pronominal questions, rhetorical questions), imperative and exclamatory.

Five types. Earlier was distinguished one more type of the sentence plus to four above mentioned ones – the negative sentence.

Types of the sentences:

Declarative – The declarative sentence expresses a statement, either affirmative or negative, and as such stands in systemic correlation with the listener’s responding signals of attention, of appraisal, of fellow feeling.

Interrogative – The interrogative sentence express a question. Types of interrogative questions: general questions, special questions, tag questions, alternative questions, rhetorical questions and suggestive questions (a peculiar kind of “yes/no” questions). They keep the word order of statements but serve as questions owning to the rising tone and a question mark in writing.

There are three more types of the sentences, which are considered to be problematic, as they can express the same purpose of the utterance as the main types of the sentence. They are as follows:

Imperative – The imperative sentence expresses inducement, i.e. it urges the listener in the form request or command to perform a certain action. Formally imperative sentences are marked by predicative verb in the imperative mood, the reference to the second person and lack of subject. Types of Imperative sentences: Negative or affirmative, exclamatory, declarative, interrogative as the commands can be softened and made into requests with the help of a tag question or a “yes/no” question beginning with “will/would”

Forms of expressing inducement:

1. By the predicative verb – ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. (St.Barstow).

2. With the help of the word “please’-Please don’t ask me. (W.S.Maugham)

3. With the help of “let”- Let’s hurry. We can be back by half-past six ‘ (J.Collier)

4. By a thing person command beginning with a noun or a pronoun denoting the person addressed – Heidi!-see that he washes! (H.E.Bates)

5. By a verbless command – ‘Sh-h-h! Don’t. It might not be tactful. (J.Collier)

6. By a word of a command – “But I want her to have it” (F.King).

Exclamatory sentences:

In modern linguistics it has been demonstrated that exclamatory sentences do not posses any complete set of qualities that could place them on one and the same level with declarative and interrogative sentences. The property of exclamation should be considered as an accompanying feature, which is effected within the system of main communicative types of sentences.

Ways of expressing exclamation:

1. By a falling tone in speaking and an exclamation mark in writing for an exclamatory sentence of subject-predicate structure- Well, of course I looked everywhere. And called! … It said that if the money were marked or the police informed then – then – Shan Tung’s ears and tail would be – cut off! (A.Christie)

2. By a word or a phrase immediately following the exclamatory signals “What/how”- ‘How people can be such friends! (A.Christie) ‘Diana! How lovely! (F.King)

3. By a one-member sentence conveying signals of alarm – “Fire!”

4. By vocatives – ‘Emily! Emily! Listen to this.’ (A.Christie)

5. Interjections – ‘Oh Jesus, no!’ said Charlie (D.Lessing) ‘Good God!’ he said. ‘She turned it off at the main.’ (J.Collier)

6. By “yes/no” utterances – ‘yes! Oh yes!’ (A.Christie)

7. Different conversational formulas- ‘Well, good-bye, I hope you’ll have a jolly journey

Negative sentences:

There are several points of view on this problem. A.M.Peshcovsky and V.V.Vinogradov put the category of negation into the circle of modal relations up to the ackniwledgement of existing of the so-called “negative mood”. A.A.Shahmatov, E.I.Shendels, S.A.Vasylyeva consider the negation as an independent grammar category which does not depend on the category of modality. Forms of expressing negative meaning: declarative, interrogative, imperative

Ways of expressing negation:

1. Grammatical – by means of the auxiliary verb and particle “not”, number of negative conjunctions “nor, neither … nor, unless” – Me? You don’t want to know about me. Isn’t it enough that I’m here? (H.E.Bates)

2. Lexico-grammatical – by means of pronouns “no, nobody, none, nothing’, adverbs “neither, never, no how, nowhere” – Gosh, I’d never measure up to that lot. (H.E.Bates). Nobody’ll ever tell me where he is. (St.Barstow)

3. Lexico-by means of affixes “un-, in-, ir-, il-, dis-, non-, less”, some verbs “fail, lack” – Christie might at any moment whip off his cap and break into an illegal song and dance (St.Barstow). But there was always an element of risk in a life such as hers, and Chtistie seemed to her harmless enough (St.Barstow).

4. Syntax – through employing some stable speech patterns “I wish I knew…” - … that I wished it had been me instead of him (B.Glanville).