Учебно-методическое пособие для студентов математического факультета специальности 1-020501 «Информатика. Иностранный язык (английский)»

parts connected by bonds of immediate domination are placed one under the 
other in a successive order of subordination, while sentence-parts related to one 
another equipotently are placed in a horizontal order. Direct connections 
between the sentence-parts are represented by horizontal and vertical lines. 
By way of example, let us take an ordinary English sentence featuring the 
basic modifier connections, and see its traditional parsing presentation: 
The small lady listened to me attentively. 
The scheme clearly shows the basic logical-grammatical connections of the 
notional constituents of the sentence.
When analysing sentences in terms of syntagmatic connections of their 
parts, two types of subordinative relations are exposed: on the one hand, 
obligatory 
relations, i.e. such as are indispensable for the existence of the 
syntactic unit as such; on the other hand, 
optional 
relations, i.e. such as may or 
may not be actually represented in the syntactic unit. These relations are at 
present interpreted in terms of syntactic valency (combining power of the word) 
and are of especial importance for the characteristic of the verb as the central 
predicative organizer of the notional stock of sentence constituents.
Thus, the idea of verbal valency, answering the principle of dividing all the 
notional sentence parts into obligatory and optional, proves helpful in gaining a 
further insight into the structure of the simple sentence; moreover, it is of crucial 
importance for the modern definition of the simple sentence. 
THE LADY 
subject 
LISTENED 
predicate 
SMALL
attribute 
TO ME 
object 
ATTENTIVELY 
adverbial 

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49 
In terms of valencies and obligatory positions first of all the category of