Content introduction chapter composite sentence in English Using composite sentence in sentence chapter the composite sentence as a polypredicative construction Using the composite sentence as a polypredicative construction conclusion summary references

the composite sentence as a polypredicative construction

Composite sentences differ from simple sentences by the number of predicative lines represented: simple sentences are monopredicative syntactic constructions, formed by only one predicative line, while composite sentences are polypredicative syntactic constructions, formed by two or more predicative lines, each with a subject and a predicate of its own. This means, that the composite sentence reflects two or more situations or events making up a unity.
Each predicative unit in a composite sentence forms a clause. A clause as a part of a composite sentence corresponds to a separate sentence, but a composite sentence is not at all equivalent to a sequence of the simple sentences underlying its clauses. Cf.: This is the issue I planned to discuss with you. - This is the issue. I planned to discuss it with you. The purpose of communication in the composite sentence above is the presentation of a certain topic; this is lost in the transformation of the sentence into a sequence of simple sentences.
There are two principal types of composite sentences: complex and compound.
In compound sentences, the clauses are connected on the basis of coordinative connections; by coordination the clauses are arranged as units of syntactically equal rank.
In complex sentences, the clauses are united on the basis of subordinative connections; by subordination the clauses are arranged as units of syntactically unequal rank in terms of the positional structure of the sentence; this means that by subordination one of the clauses (subordinate) is placed in a notional position of the other (principal).
This structural characteristic has an essential semantic implication: a subordinate clause, however important the information rendered by it might be for the whole communication, presents it as naturally supplementing the information in the principal clause, cf.: This is the issue I planned to discuss with you. As for coordinated clauses, their equality in rank is expressed above all in each sequential clause explicitly corresponding to a new effort of thought, which can be introduced by the purely copulative conjunction and or the adversative conjunction but, cf.: I want to discuss something with you, but we can talk about it later. The sequential clause in a compound sentence is usually rigidly fixed and refers to the whole of the leading clause, whereas the subordinate clause in a complex sentence usually refers to one notional constituent in the principal clause and can vary positionally.
The connections between the clauses in a composite sentence may be effected syndetically, i.e. by means of special connecting words, conjunctions and other conjunctional words or word-combinations, or asyndetically, i.e. without any conjunctional words used.
Alongside the two basic types of composite sentences there is one more type of polypredicative construction, in which the connections between the clauses are rather loose, syntactically detached: the following clause is like an afterthought, an expansion or a comment to the proceeding clause. In oral speech its formal sign is often the tone of sentential completion, followed by a shorter pause than the usual pause between separate sentences. In written speech such clauses are usually separated by semi-final punctuation marks: a dash, a colon, a semi-colon or brackets, e.g.: I wasn’t going to leave; I’d only just arrived. This type of connection is called cumulation, and such composite sentences can be called cumulative. Various parenthetical clauses of introductory and commenting-deviational semantics can be treated as specific cumulative clauses, which give a background to the essential information of the expanded clause, e.g.: As I have already told you, they are just friends.
+ Alongside the “completely” composite sentence, built up by two or more fully predicative lines, there are polypredicative constructions, in which one predicative line may be partially predicative, as, for example, in sentences with various verbal complexes, e.g.: I heard him singing in the backyard. They can be defined as “semi-composite sentences”.
The composite sentence, as different from the simple sentence, is formed by two or more predicative lines. Being a polypredicative construction, it expresses a complicated act of thought, i.e. an act of mental activity which falls into two or more intellectual efforts closely combined with one another. In terms of situations and events this means that thecomposite sentence reflects two or more elementarysituational events viewed as making up a unity; the constitutive connections of the events are expressed by the constitutive connections of the predicative lines of the sentence, i.e. by the sentential polypredication.Each predicative unit in a composite sentence makes up a clause in it, so that a clause as part of a composite sentence corresponds to a separate sentence as part of a contextual sequence
When I sat down to dinner I looked for an opportunity to slip in casually the information that I had by accident run across the Driffields; but news travelled fast in Blackstable (S. Maugham).
The cited composite sentence includes four clauses which are related to one another on different semantic grounds. The sentences underlying the clauses are the following:
I sat down to dinner. I looked for an opportunity to slip in casually the information. I had by accident run across the Driffields. News travelled fast in Blackstable.
The correspondence of a predicative clause to a separate sentence is self-evident. On the other hand, the correspondence of a composite sentence to a genuine, logically connected sequence of simple sentences (underlying its clauses) is not evident at all; moreover, such kind of correspondence is in fact not obligatory, which is the very cause of the existence of the composite sentence in a language. Indeed, in the given example the independent sentences reconstructed from the predicative clauses do not make up any coherently presented situational unity; they are just so many utterances each expressing an event of self-sufficient significance. By way of rearrangement and the use of semantic connectors we may make them into a more or less explanatory situational sequence, but the exposition of the genuine logic of events, i.e. their presentation as natural parts of a unity, achieved by the composite sentence will not be, and is not to be replaced in principle. Cf.:
I ran by accident across the Driffields. At some time later on I sat down to dinner. While participating in the general conversation, I looked for an opportunity to slip in casually the information about my meeting them. But news travelled fast in Blackstable.
The logical difference between the given composite sentence and its contextually coherent de-compositionalpresentation is, that whereas the composite sentence exposes as its logical centre, i.e. the core of its purpose of communication, the intention of the speaker to inform his table-companions of a certain fact (which turns out to be already known to them), the sentential sequence expresses the events in their natural temporal succession, which actually destroys the original purpose of communication. Any formation of a sentential sequence more equivalent to the given composite sentence by its semantic status than the one shown above has to be expanded by additional elucidative prop-utterances with back-references; and all the same, the resulting contextual string, if it is intended as a real informational substitute for the initial composite, will hardly be effected without the help of some kind of essentially composite sentence constructions included in it (let the reader himself try to construct an equivalent textual sequence meeting the described semantic requirements).

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