Theoretical Grammar of English

Study questions

1. 
   What types of linguistic relations between words do you know?
   
2. 
   What relation is called paradigmatic?
   
3. 
   What relation is called syntagmatic?
   
4. 
   What is agreement?
   
5. 
   What is government?
   
6. 
   What is collocation?
   
7. 
   Are there agreement, government and collocation in your native language?
   
8. 
   What relation between words are called syntactic?
   
9. 
   What relation is called predicative?
   

Word-Combinations and Their Types

Word-combination (or phrase) is a syntactically connected group of notional words within the limits of sentence but which is not a sentence itself. (3),
B. Ilyish (15) defines it as follows: "Phrase is every combination of two or more words which is a grammatical unit but is not an analytical form of some word (as, for instance, the perfect forms of verbs)" and further Ilyish writes that "the difference between a phrase and a sentence is a fundamental one. A phrase is a means of naming some phenomenon or process, just as a word is. Each component of a phrase can undergo grammatical changes in accordance with grammatical categories represented in it. Without destroying the identity of the phrase.".
"With a sentence things are entirely different. A sentence is a unit with every word having its definite form. A change in the form of one or more words would produce a new sentence".
But if one takes into consideration that any phrase is a constituent of sentences then it is difficult to accept Ilyish's concept of phrases. Any change in the structure of a phrase may result the change in the sentence to which this phrase refers. In this case that sentence will become another sentence as per the concept of the author.
Following L. Barkhudarov's conception we distinguish three types of word- combinations:
1. Subordinate phrases the IC of which are connected by a subordination bond: cold water, reading a book, famous detective, smoked fish, and so on.
Z. Co-ordinate phrases the IC of which are connected by a coordination bond: slowly but steadily; pen and
pencils.
3. Predicative phrases the IC of which are connected by a predication bond: for you to go; breakfast over...
When he turned his head the two behind could see his lips moving.
But phrases don't always consist of two elements; their IC may contain more than one word, as e.g.
three black dogs
In the same phrase we find 3 words. IC are connected by a subordination bond. When I C of two or more membered phrases are connected by a similar bond we'll call elementary phrase,
e.g. mighty entertaining story; teaching English Grammar: men, women and children... But very often certain phrases in their turn fall under some other phrases, 1C of which are connected by different bonds, as it is in the phrase. Red and blue pencils.
Here we find subordination and coordination. Such phrases are called compound phrases,
e.g. brought pens and pencils. Subordinate phrases may be of different types which depend on the part of speech the head word is expressed by