Seminar № 7 The Sentence in the Text • The supra-phrasal unity and the paragraph • Means of anaphoric and cataphoric cohision in the text • Factors of prospective and retrospective cumulation • The semantic unity of the text and the semantico-syntactic cohision
SPU (The supra-phrasal unity) • A succession of two or more schematically connected sentences which are united in one semantic whole by one communicative intention (David Crystal) • The means of sentence connection of SPU are: reference, substitution, ellipsis, intonation and cohision (Halliday) • Should include minimum 2 sentences
Paragraph • A stretch of written literary text delimited by a new line at the beginning and an incomplete line at the close
What’s the Difference? • SPU • At least 2 sentences • Paragraph • Usually they are longer than SPU • In speech • Not always semantically complete • Expressive • In writing (Freedman)
Sentence • Used to be considered as the largest grammatically arranged linguistic form (L. Bloomfield) • Nowadays scientists prove that sentences in speech do come under broad grammatical arrangements, do combine with one another in the formation of larger stretches of both oral and written talk
BUT!!! • Not any sequence of independent sentences forms a syntactic unity! • I like her. His eyes are blue. Dog began to jump. • So sentences may or may not build up a coherent sequence. It depends on the purpose of the speaker.
Due to the communicative direction sentence sequences may be divided into: • Monologue sequences • One-direction sequences • “complex syntactic unity” – N. S. Pospelov • “super-phrasal unity” – L. A. Bulakhovsky • “Supra-sentential construction” – M. Y. Blokh • “cumulative sequence” or “cumuleme” • Dialogue sequences • Two-direction sequence • “occurseme”
The Means of Sentence connections Cumulation (M. Y. Blokh) Prospective (“Epiphoric”, “Cataphoric”) Retrospective (“Anaphoric”)
Cohision (Holliday) anaphoric cataphoric
Prospective Cumulation • It is effected by connective elements that relate a given sentence to one that is to follow it. • I tell you there are two ways out. The first is to tell the truth. The second is to wait when he’ll understand everything himself. • It is especially characteristic of the texts of scientific and technical works.
Retrospective Cumulation • It is effected by connective elements that relate a given sentence to the one that precedes it and is semantically complete by itself. • I liked this movie. It was breathtaking.
Cumulation (on the basis of the functional nature of connectors) • Conjunctive • Regular conjunctions • Adverbial and parenthetical sentenceconnectors (then, yet, however, hence, besides, moreover etc. ) • Functional and semifunctional words • Only retrospective! • Correlative • It is achieved by a pair of elements, one of which, the “succeedent”, refers to the other, the “antecedent”. • May be either prospective or retrospective
Correlative cumulation • substitutional connection • based on the use of various substitutes • For example, pronouns, e. g. : I saw a girl. She looked very much upset. The girl is the antecedent of the pronoun she The whole preceding sentence, or its clause, can be the antecedent of a correlative substitute. • E. g. : We’re getting new machines next month. This (= this fact) will help us to increase productivity. • representative connection • achieved by elements which are semantically connected without the factor of replacement • I saw a girl. Her face seemed familiar to me. • Includes repetition (so-called “repeated nomination”): simple lexical repetition or repetition complicated by different variations (by the use of synonyms, by certain semantic development, periphrasis, association, etc. ) • E. g. : I answered very sharply. My answer didn’t upset her
The Semantic Unity of the Text and the Semantico-Syntactic Cohision • Semantic unity and syntactic cohision are supported by communicative unity of sentences, or themerheme arrangement of the cumuleme. • Linear (progressive) connection and parallel connection of sentences. The rheme of the leading sentence becomes theme of the sequential sentence, forming what is known as a theme-rheme chain, e. g. : There was a girl on the platform She was wearing a hat. The hat was decorated with flowers and ribbons. • With parallel connection of sentences, the component sentences share the same theme within the supra-sentential construction, e. g. : George was an honest man. He had graduated from Harvard. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts.
Dicteme • The general elementary unit-segment of text built up by either a cumuleme or by a single sentence can be defined as a the general elementary unit-segment of text built up by either a cumuleme or by a single sentence can be defined as a “dicteme”.
Dicteme’s Functions • • • Dicteme is polyfunctional Topical function Functions of nomination Functions of predication Functions of stylization
• In oral text, dictemes are delimited intonationally: pauses between dictemes are longer than pauses between sentences within the same cumuleme. • In written text, the dicteme is normally represented by a paragraph, but it must be noted that the two units are not identical. • A paragraph can include more than one dicteme, or it may divide one dicteme into parts, for example, for the introduction of utterances in a dialogue or for the introduction of separate points in enumerations
There is a syntactic construction intermediary between the sentence and the sequence of sentences. • Parcellation: I am always shy. With you. • The two parts are separated by a finalizing sentence tone in oral speech and by a full stop in written speech, but they relate to each other as parts of one and the same sentence
The End Thank you for your Attention!