Topic 23: Sentence Structure in English: declaratives, interrogatives and exclamatives 1. Introduction Sentences in English are divided into four main syntactic types: declaratives, interrogatives, exclamatives and directives. Associated with these syntactic categories are four major classes of discourse functions: statements, questions, exclamations and directives. However, it should be borne in mind that syntactic type and discourse or semantic class do not always match due to the difference between locutionary act and illocutionary force, as we shall see in the following pages. For the purpose of this topic, we will just concentrate on the first three categories. 2. The English sentence Sentences can be:
Simple (single independent sentence).
Compound (two independent sentences linked by a coordinator).
Complex (a main clause and one or more subordinate clauses).
Irrespective of the type of sentence all of them may have the following elements: a. Subject (S) b. Verb (V) c. Direct Object (Od) and Indirect Object (Oi) d. Subject Complement (CS) and Object Complement (CO) e. Adverbials (A) Subject and Verb are normally obligatory elements. The rest of elements listed above can be either optional or obligatory, depending on the type of verb and the complementation it requires. Let us examine two examples:
Obligatory: if we omit the Cs the sentence is incomplete. o Robert is becoming quite immature (SVC)
Optional: if we omit the O, OO and OOA the sentence is complete. o He is teaching (SV)
o He is teaching Linguistics (SVO) o He is teaching them Linguistics (SVOO) o He is teaching them Linguistics at Harvard (SVOOA) In light of the above, the basic sentence patterns in English are as follows:
Intransitive (SV): Tom disappeared
Monotransitive (SVOd): Tom hired a car
Ditransitive (SVOiOd): Peter gave Mary a ring
SVA: Peter lives in London.
Intensive (with linking verbs), an can be of two types: o SVCs: My brother has become a ski instructor o SVAs: My brother is in Australia
Complex transitive I (SVOdCo): They though the whole idea a success
Complex transitive II (SVOdAo): He kicked the ball across the field.
Syntactically, the clause types that we are going to study below are distinguished by the ordering of what is called the mood of the sentence: Subject and finite verb. The rest of the elements in the predicate (the residue) remain unchanged. 3. Declaratives Declaratives sentences are normally used to make statements, whether affirmative or negative. However, they can also be used to apologise, to make predictions, to ask questions, to give advice or to issue commands. They are normally uttered in a falling tone and end with a period. 3.1.
Affirmative declarative sentences
Affirmative sentences have a subject- finite verb ordering. The Finite is realised by a verbal operator (primary verbs BE and HAVE and modal verbs) or a tensed form of the lexical verb, and is the first or only element of a verbal group. Jane is meeting Mr Rochester at 10 (Jane= S/ is= F/ meeting Mr Rochester at 10= predicator)
Mr Thornton loves Margaret These primary verbs can also function as main verbs in declarative sentences: Jane is an intelligent woman As we can see in the examples, Predicator and Finite fuse in present and past forms of lexical verbs and when BE and HAVE are used as main verbs (examples above). The finite can as well be realised by operator DO for emphatic purposes: I do like cookies The order of adverbials is always first adverbs of place and then of time: I will tell you the story at school tomorrow (SVOiOdAA) In affirmative declarative sentences the order of elements may change in the following instances:
Subject can be omitted in set phrases: Told you so/ Serves him right.
Subject- verb inversion to achieve end- focus on the subject: Out rushed the thief or Here comes the bride.
A further fact that must be borne in mind is subject- verb concord. The most important type of concord in English is 3rd person, especially in present tenses: My daughter writes novels, but my daughters write novels. Collective nouns normally take a plural verb in British English and so do coordinated noun phrases acting as subjects. Clauses as subjects, on the other hand, take a singular verb (Smoking is dangerous). 3.2.
Negative declarative sentences
In negative declarative sentences complementation, subject- verb concord and order is exactly the same as in affirmative sentences, but negation has its particularities which we proceed to explain below. Negation of statements can be accomplished in different ways:
1) Negation of verb Negative sentences have a subject- finite verb ordering. The Finite is realised by a verbal operator (HAVE/ BE/ modals) followed by the negative particle NOT before the predication: I have eaten/ I have not eaten She is happy/ She is not happy If no operator is present in the affirmative clause, the dummy operator DO is introduced: She plays the guitar/ She does not play the guitar In colloquial English the negative particle is joint to the operator as n’t. She doesn’t play the guitar. I haven’t eaten Other possibility of contraction in informal contexts is auxiliary contraction: She’s not ready. Full form is preferred in formal written contexts and for emphatic purposes. Clause negation can be followed by one or more non-assertive items. They can be determiners and pronouns (any, neither), pronouns (anything, anybody, anyone) or adverbs (anywhere, ever, any more, any longer, much). Thus, I haven’t bought anything for you I haven’t seen him anywhere 2) Negation of other elements Here we may distinguish two different types of elements: a) Words negative in form and meaning
We sometimes have a choice between verb negation and negation of some other element. We can negate a clause element with NO or NOT, or by using a word such as NONE or NEVER: He is not a friend of yours He is no friend of yours I won’t lie ever again I will never lie again. He wouldn’t say a word He would say not a word I haven’t got any of your books I have got none of your books. In formal English, the negative element may be moved to initial position, in which case there is inversion of subject and operator: Never will I lie again. Under no circumstances should he come again. Other instances of negative words that make a clause negative are the corresponding negative items to non- assertive forms: nobody, no one, nothing, nowhere, neither, no, none... Consequently, there are two possible negative equivalents for a positive sentence: Pete was speaking to somebody
Pete was not speaking to anybody
Pete was speaking to nobody.
It must be noted that double negation (e.g. Don’t go nowhere!) is not possible in formal English, though they are used in some informal styles. b) Words negative in meaning but not in form Elements like seldom, rarely, scarcely, hardly, barely, little and few can effect clause negation: I seldom get any sleep When positioned initially they cause subject/operator inversion: Scarcely ever has a British Prime Minister suffered so much criticism.
4. Interrogatives Interrogative sentences are normally used to make questions, but there are also instances in which they can be used to make a request, an offer or to give advice. They end with a question mark. 4.1.
Yes- no questions
Yes- no questions are those which expect an affirmative or negative reply. They normally have rising intonation. The ordering is Finite/ Subject, because they are formed by placing the operator before the subject: Tony is married Is Tony married? As with negation, if there is no item in the verb phrase that can function as operator, DO is introduced: They live in the Highlands Do they live in the Highlands? In British English, unlike American English, main verb HAVE does not need the auxiliary DO: Have you got a cold? Furthermore, we should mention the ellipted responses to yes- no questions (No, I don’t/ Yes, I will), which show more interest and involvement than a mere Yes/ No. The choice of subject and operator depends on the subject and operator in the question. 4.1.1. Positive yes-no questions Yes- no questions may contain non- assertive items (any, ever...). The question containing such forms is generally neutral, with no bias in expectation towards a positive or negative response: Did anyone call last night? Nonetheless, these questions may be conducive, that is, they may indicate that the speaker is predisposed to the kind of answer he has expected.
A positive question may have positive orientation by using assertive forms: Did someone call last night? = [is it true that someone called last night?].
A positive question may also have negative orientation by inserting really: Do you really want that?
4.1.2. Negative yes- no questions Negative questions are always conducive.
Negative orientation is found in questions which contain a negative form of any kind. They imply that what the speaker originally expected (old expectation) was a positive response, but that new evidence (new expectation) suggests that the response will be negative: Don’t you trust me? Has he never married?
Positive orientation is achieved with assertive items: Didn’t someone call last night? = [I expect that someone did].
In formal styles the negative particle NOT follows the subject: Did they not warn you? 4.1.3. Tag questions Tag questions are always conducive and they have the following characteristics: 1) They are appended to a statement in the form of a declarative. 2) The tag question has the form of a yes-no question consisting of merely an operator and a subject pronoun the choice of which depends upon the statement. 3) If the statement does not have an operator, dummy auxiliary DO is used instead.
4) The pronoun in the tag question must be in co- reference with the subject of the statement and the verb must be in the same tense. There are four main types of tag questions:
With rising tone: o Positive statement (positive assumption) + negative tag (neutral expectation):
Jane loves Edward,
doesn’t she?
o Negative statement (negative assumption) + positive tag (neutral expectation):
Jane doesn’t love Edward, does she?
In both cases, the tag with a rising tone implies doubt and invites verification, expecting the hearer to decide the truth of the proposition in the statement.
With falling tone: o Positive statement (positive assumption) + negative tag (positive expectation):
Jane loves Edward,
doesn’t she?
o Negative statement (negative assumption) + positive tag (negative expectation):
Jane doesn’t love Edward,
does she?
In both cases, the tag with the falling tone expresses certainty and invites confirmation of the statement. There is a further, less common, type of tag question in which both statement and question are positive. They are accompanied by discourse markers Oh, So or Well now, and indicate that the speaker is expressing a conclusion. The effect is often emotive: So, you can run faster than me,
can you? Let’s have a race then! (disbelief)
Tag questions can also be appended to imperatives and exclamatives: Don’t make a noise, will you?
Let’s go to the park, shall we? 4.1.4. Declarative questions Declarative questions have the form of a declarative, but with a rising intonation. They are conducive and invite the hearer’s verification.
Positive questions have positive orientation and can therefore accept only assertive items: o He wants something to eat?
Negative questions have negative orientation and can therefore accept non- assertive forms: o You didn’t anything to eat?
4.2.
Wh- questions
Wh- questions have falling intonation and are formed with the following interrogative words:
Who/whom/whose
What/ which
When
Where
How
Why
The ordering is Wh- item/ Finite/ Subject and DO is used when there is no operator (BE or HAVE) in the equivalent statement. When there is a prepositional complement the preposition comes first in formal English, but it is deferred to the end of the sentence in non- formal style: On what do you base your prediction? What do you base your prediction on? The wh- element can have many different clause functions (S/ Od/ Cs/ Co/ A). There is subject/ operator inversion in all cases except when the wh- element is subject:
Who wrote Hamlet? [who = S], but Who do you love? [who= Od] Wh- elements can combine with the word –ever (whoever, whatever...) which acts as an intensifier expressing the surprise, perplexity or disbelief of the speaker. Additionally, in colloquial contexts wh- words can be intensified by lexical items which include ‘on earth’ or ‘the hell’. We should not fail to mention abbreviated questions, which are very common in informal speech: what for? Why not? 4.3.
Alternative questions
There are two types:
Alternative yes- no question: o They have rising tone on the first element(s) of choice and falling tone on the last
Would you like va nilla or
chocolate ice- cream?
Alternative wh- question: o They have falling intonation. o They are followed by an elliptical alternative question:
Which ice-cream would you or
4.4.
like? Chocolate, va
nilla
strawberry?
Minor types of questions
There are as well other types of questions that should be mentioned:
Exclamatory questions: they are interrogative in structure, but have the force of an exclamatory assertion. Typically they are negative yes- no questions with a final falling tone. They invite the hearer’s agreement to something the speaker has strong feelings: o Hasn’t she
grown!
Rhetorical questions: they are interrogative in structure, but have the force of a strong assertion. The speaker does not expect an answer. They can be positive or negative yes- no questions with a normal rising tone or positive or negative (less common) wh- questions with a rise-fall tone: o Isn’t it
obvious?
o Who ^cares?
Echo- questions: they repeat part or all what has been said. They can be of two types: o Replicatory when the intention is to have their content confirmed:
Tom is emigrating
Emigrating?
o Explicatory (always wh- questions) when the intention is to ask for clarification:
He’s missed the bus again
Who’s missed the bus?
5. Exclamatives Exclamatives are used for expressing the extent to which the speaker is impressed by something. As a formal category of sentence they are restricted to the type of exclamatory utterance introduced by WHAT or HOW. The ordering is thus Wh- word/ subject/ finite. Exclamatives resemble wh- questions in requiring the initial placement of an exclamatory wh-element. There is no subject- operator inversion (except for formal and literary English) and the syntactic order depends upon the function that the wh- element plays in the sentence (O, S, C, A):
How quickly you eat! [Wh= A/ ASV]
What a time we had today! [Wh= Od/ OSVA]
In addition, the wh- element can act as a prepositional complement, and the preposition is usually at the end: What a mess we’re in! It is, nonetheless, possible (though rare) for the preposition to occur in initial position: In what poverty these people live! As we have already pointed out only two wh- words can be used in exclamatory sentences. The wh- word indicates an extreme position on some scale of value,
and therefore can only appear at points where an expression of degree is possible:
WHAT as predeterminer in a noun phrase
HOW as intensifier of an adjective or adverb or as a degree adverbial.
5.1.
Echo exclamations
The echo exclamation, like the echo question, repeats part or all the preceding utterance, but unlike echo questions, they are characterised by a rise fall tone. The form of the utterance to be repeated may be declarative, interrogative, imperative, or even exclamative: A: I’m going to Milton for work B: To ^Milton! That’s not my idea of progress The earlier utterance can be repeated with various degrees of completeness. Thus, in the example above we can say You’re going to Milton! Going to Milton! or simply Milton! Some irregular subject- predicate constructions in which the finite verb is omitted are produced in these exchanges: A: I heard you are a linguist B: I a linguist! Me a linguist! 6. Conclusion So far, in this unit we have attempted to give a broad view of English sentence structures since we assume that there is an intrinsic connection between its learning and effective communication. Sentence structure is a top requirement for our students both in CSE, in which easy cases are dealt with, and NCSE, in which more complex cases, including subordination, are studied. Bibliography Downing, A. & Locke, P. (2006). English Grammar: a University Course. London: Routledge.
Huddleston, R. & Pullum, G. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: CUP. Quirk et al (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.
