Consider the following sentences. Pick out elliptical sentences and give their full version.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 677.

Examine the following extract and point out the sentences which may be considered elliptical. Analyse their grammatical structure.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing”, he tapped, and waited a few minutes. Saigon came back:

“My name is Henry. What's yours?” “Jean Val Jean”. Brian felt his mystification, repeated the name.

“How old are you?” Henry tapped out, making several mistakes.

“Thirty-five”, Brian lied, enjoying his name. “And you?”

“Twenty-seven. Where were you born?”

Brian told him: “Nottingham”.

1) Too many women nowadays, and they don't know what they want. 2) You going to take Irene? 3) Mean to tell me you didn't know? 4) I don't write. Not such a fool. 5) “Can't we set the grass on fire?” Macober asked. “Too green”. 6) Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. 7) Hello. Where off to? Something to eat? I too was just in here. 8) Am I not going there? Seems not. No one about.

4. Determine the predicative load of the sentences:

EXAMPLE: You needn't have asked him.

The syntactic predicative load of this sentence is 2, as it renders two strong syntactic oppositional meanings: those of the modal subject-object relation (need) and negation. The morphological load is presented by the perfect order.

1) You mayn't care much for Czars or millionaires. (Chesterton) 2) “I might happen to have murdered my own brother-in-law?” (Chesterton) 3) It might have been a model of the Holy Grail. (Chesterton) 4) “Why didn't you murder him?” (Chesterton) 5) Mr. Fitzpatrick seemed to enjoy himself. (Joyce) 6) Shouldn't I be an awful nuisance? (Maugham) 7) She began to giggle. (Maugham) 8) How should I know? (Maugham) 9) Wouldn't you like me to read? (Hemingway) 10) But that's not possible, is it? (Saroyan)

5. Form sentences with greater predicative load taking as the basis the following kernel sentences:

EXAMPLE: He was upset.

a) Was he upset? (1)

b) Wasn't he upset? (2)

c) Can he be upset? (2)

d) Cannot he be upset? (3)

e) He didn't seem to be upset. (2)

f) He can't have been upset. (3)

g) Couldn't he have been upset? (4)

1) This man was a gambler. (Chesterton) 2) They met at the club. (Doyle) 3) “You're driving too fast”. (Thurber) 4) “I said nonsense” (Chesterton) 5) He found and excuse for going off (Saroyan).

Literature:

1. Блох М.Я. Практикум по теоретической грамматике английского языка / М.Я. Блох, Т.Н. Семенова, С.В. Тимофеева. – М.: Высшая школа, 2004. – С. 337-358.

2. Иванова И.П., Бурлакова В.В., Почепцов Г.Г. Теоретическая грамматика английского языка. – М.: Высш. шк., 1981. – С. 207-230.