Lecture 7 Plan: The problem of secondary parts of the sentence The object The attribute The adverbials Key words

Lecture 7
Plan:

1. 
   The problem of secondary parts of the sentence
   
2. 
   The object
   
3. 
   The attribute
   
4. 
   The adverbials
   

Key words:objectival word combination, attributive word combination, prepositional, prepositionless, direct, indirect, complex objects, cognate object, morphological peculiarities, undivided and divided appositions, syntaxemes, methods-transformation-substitution, componential and syntaxeme analyse

The secondary parts of the sentence are considered “object”, “attribute” and “adverbials” in the world linguistics. But those terms are used parallel in the word combinations and in the structure of the sentences, i.e. in the classification of word combinations are expressed by means of “objectival word combination”, “attributive word combination”. In this case the question is appeared. Is the word combination the object of syntactic level or the object of lexical level?

According to the consideration of some linguists The word combination must be a separate level of the language (V.V. Balakova, 1981, 108). This idea may be more close to reality. Because the language levels consist of phoneme , morpheme, lexeme, word combination and a sentence. Each of them have their studying objects. If we pay attention to the classification, we are not able to consider the object, attribute and adverbials as the secondary parts of the sentence. If we consider the word combinations as a separate level of the language or the object of lexical level, then we can study the word combinations dividing into two groups, i.e. free word combination and set expression.
If we consider “object”, “attribute”, “adverbial modifiers” as the secondary parts of speech, then we come across a number of disputable questions. For example, if we pay attention to the object the action expressed by the predicate, directed sign or the object in that action is the indicator of object as the secondary parts of the sentence is called an object, i.e. it supplements the predicate. It is expressed by the noun in common case, personal, possessive, emphatic, reflective, demonstrative, indefinite pronouns, substantivized adjective, participle, infinitive or phrases with the infinitive, the gerund or the gerundial phrases and any nominalized speech element (J. Buranov and others, 1974,314-315: M.Y. Blokh, 1983).
The object.The classification of the object is based on according to the direct and indirect transition of the action the object is divided into prepositional, prepositionless, direct, indirect, complex objects and the meaning of the verb in the function of predicate is close to the meaning of the object in the sentence – cognate object.
In general, majority of linguists in English stated that the realization of the object in the structure of the sentence depends on the lexical meaning of the verb in the syntactical position of the predicate, i.e. only transitive verbs demand the object in the structure of the sentence. Such kind of consideration offers many difficulties while analyzing the structure of the sentence, so we have to come across many questions as: 1) should be the predicate expressed only by transitive verb in order to be realized the object? 2) does the transitiveness may be only the verbs? 3) Can’t we find the object if the predicate of the sentence is expressed by not the verb but by the other parts of speech?
The main causes of appearing such kind of questions are: while syntactic analyses of the structure of the sentence implements putting questions to the parts of the sentence, paying attention to the order of words, determing the object on the base of lexical meaning of the verb. For example:

1. 
   I want you to come (complex object)
   
2. 
   She sleeps a sound sleep (cognate object)
   

If we pay attention to the syntactic analysis of those sentences, “you to come” is separated syntactic unit, and there is predicativity between “you” and “to come” and in the second sentence the verb in the position of predicate “sleeps” is not transitive verb but there is a cognate object. Or “I write him a letter – I write a letter to him.” As you see in on sentence. “him” is indirect object, in the second sentence “to him” – is a prepositional object. Such kind of analyses don’t satisfy any student.
To my mind, the causes of those problems are appeared on the results of beginning the syntactic analyses on the syntactic level and return to the lower level of the language, i.e. to the Morphological level of the language. Instead of this, i.e. the syntactic unit of calling “the object” must be studied on the syntactical level revealing differentiative syntactic-semantic and their variants, i.e. their paradigmatic rates. Only them we can increase studying object of modern English syntax.
The attribute.According to the rules of traditional grammar, the attribute is one of the secondary parts of the sentence denoting the sign, quality, number, measure etc. in this case attributing part is called attributed and the relation between them is attributive connection. On the base of this the attribute to the attributed unit is related either by adjoining ( joinment ) or by attributive connections which are studied on the level of word combinations.
If we pay attention to the morphological peculiarities of the attribute, it usually determines the sign of the subject, object, adverbials and predicate expressed by the noun, pronoun or nominalized words. According to the syntactical position of attribute in the structure of the sentence attribute to the attributed unit may be in the preposition or in the postposition and that’s why the attribute may be prepositive attribute and postpositive attribute.
The attribute may be expressed with the help of the adjective, participles I, II, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, relative, reciprical pronouns, cardinal and ordinal numbers, noun, prepositional combination, the infinitive and constructions with the infinitive and subordinate clause of attribute. Besides this, the apposition is also considered that is one the types of attribute, and the linguists divided it into
close or undivided and divided appositions. It is also one of the disputable questions among linguists.
For example:
1. We are two talking about it
2. I love you, Miss Berkley
3. I saw somebody very important
4. The boy with grey-eyes is my cousin
It is far from the reality if we consider syntactical units two, Miss Berkley, with grey-eyes, very important, as attribute, because it is very complicated to determine them as attribute on the base of putting questions or according to the order of words. That’s why this question demands concrete linguistic methods in order to prove it.